Dwight Harmon Memorial Endowed Scholarship

The Dwight Harmon Memorial Endowed Scholarship was created to celebrate the life of Dwight Harmon, a beloved instructor, by providing scholarship support to undergraduate students in the Illustration program at the College. It is the donor’s wish that students selected for this scholarship would appreciate and reflect Dwight Harmon’s spirit of innovation, experimentation, and openness to different approaches to creation and fabrication.

Press Release:
September 13, 1996

PASADENA, CA: Most of us can remember a defining influence in our lives when the world came into focus and we knew what we wanted to do. For many, a special teacher quickened talents or feelings which turned ordinary students into extraordinary adults. Dwight Harmon was such an individual.

A graduate of Pacific High School in San Bernardino, Harmon graduated with honors in illustration and earned his Masters of Fine Arts in painting from the Art Center College of Design (ACCD) in Pasadena. His work was featured in gallery shows in Scottsdale, Arizona, and colleagues remember him as Art Center’s foremost painting teacher and expert on experimental media. Harmon was killed in San Bernardino in June on hjs way home from teaching an evening class.

He began teaching in the illustration and fine arts departments at ACCD in 1969. President David Brown said, ‘’With a little bit of guesswork, we believe Dwight Harmon in his 26 years of teaching probably had over 3,000 students in his classes—almost one-fourth of all the people, who have ever gone to school here. These bare facts and statistics do nothing to capture Dwight the man, Dwight the artist, and especially Dwight the teacher. Dwight taught technique and information, yes. But more than about anyone I’ve ever known, Dwight taught people."

Every trimester, the students of the graduating class in each major select one of their instructors for special thanks and recognition. Dwight Harmon’s wife, Maria Rendon, recently accepted his fourth “Great Teacher” award marking his generosity in sharing information, experience, energy and concern for students."