Cynthia Chan Hull ’65 provides generous, unrestricted support to Pomona College, attributing her successful career to the transformative power of a liberal arts education.
Hull (fourth row, second from the right) is pictured with the Class of 1965 during their 60th reunion at Alumni Weekend 2025.
Hull joins her classmates in the tradition of walking through the Gates at Alumni Weekend 2025.
Hull (second row, second from the right) posing with fellow members of Phi Beta Kappa on the steps of Carnegie Hall in 1965.
Hull, one of just two classics majors in her class, after her Commencement ceremony at Pomona with Harry J. Carroll who was a classics professor from 1949 to 1983.
When she stepped onto Pomona College’s campus as a transfer student, Cynthia Chan Hull ’65 found a caring, intellectual community that led to lifelong Sagehen friendships and an education that prepared her for an unanticipated career.
With two degrees in classics, Hull credits her liberal arts education and residential experience at Pomona with her successful career pivot to information technology and program management. In celebration of her 60th class reunion this year, Hull made a $1 million endowed bequest to the College to help sustain academic excellence and support emerging areas of need.
“On behalf of the College, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Cynthia for her generous commitment to Pomona,” says President G. Gabrielle Starr. “Her gift will provide essential flexibility to support and enrich academic and campus life opportunities for Sagehens, for generations to come.”
A longtime supporter of the College, Hull says she’s impressed by Pomona’s evolution over the past six decades. She credits the Benton Museum of Art’s dynamic range of programs and exhibitions along with the addition of new resources to help students thrive for inspiring her legacy gift, which allows the College to direct the funds where they’re needed most.
“I think this is a time when it’s increasingly important to support education,” says Hull. “I can’t imagine where the College will go next because I never could have imagined the directions it has already gone.”
Hull’s own path might have been very different had she not found the courage to seek positive change.
She began her undergraduate days at a large university and soon found herself swimming among a sea of students in massive lecture halls. Hull struggled to find community, connection and friends. She says she had not envisioned college as an endless series of bus rides from home, to classes on campus, to home again.
Pomona offered a clear alternative. Hull transferred as a junior and was one of two classics majors in the Class of 1965. “I had this image of what college life should be like and Pomona absolutely was it,” Hull says. “I could live in a residence hall and have people around me to share it with.”
She went on to earn her master’s degree in classics at UCLA but realized while working as a teaching assistant that academia was not her calling. A temporary position in information technology completely changed the trajectory of her career. She began by leading training sessions, writing manuals and translating programmers’ work into understandable formats. She later became a program manager, overseeing federal government contracts and programs for a variety of agencies, including with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Foreign Missions, where she worked closely with embassies and consulates.
Hull emphasizes that her experiences and relationships as a Pomona student helped her become well-rounded, taught her how to engage with others across differences and encouraged her to think critically. Connecting her classics education to her professional career, she notes that her knowledge of Latin gave her insight into the orderly structure of a programmer’s mindset.
“Cynthia’s story illustrates how a Pomona liberal arts education provides the requisite skills and motivation to succeed in unexpected ways,” says Prof. Christopher Chinn, chair of the Department of Classics. “We are thankful that she has chosen to give back to the College to support future students who may also discover transformative opportunities along their life journeys.”
As a transfer student, Hull says she didn’t know many other students during her time at Pomona, but the Pomona class reunions and monthly Class of 1965 Zoom meetings have connected her with former classmates who have since become longtime friends.
“Pomona gave me a great start and continues to nurture me to this day,” Hull says.
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