To understand the transformative power of a college diploma, look no further than Longwood University Vice Rector David Rose.
The grandson of, in his own words, a “solidly middle-class” family, and the son of a first-generation college graduate, Rose is the direct beneficiary of the generational impact of higher education. While neither of his maternal grandparents, Abraham and Shirley Honig, held college degrees, they strongly encouraged their three children—including Rose’s mother, Rochelle—to pursue higher education.
“They valued education,” Rose said of his grandparents, who played a significant role in his upbringing while his mother pursued her postgraduate education. “I know they saw that if their own children could get into academia and pursue that higher level of education, there was no limit to what they could accomplish.”
Rose’s mother went on to earn two master’s degrees, became a speech pathologist and taught at Christopher Newport University. Meanwhile, one of his uncles became a lawyer and the other a doctor. All provided concrete representations of the pathways education could open and set Rose on his own professional journey that wound from a chemistry lab to Wall Street and eventually to one of the longest operating financial advising companies in the region.
“I felt like my grandmother and grandfather really sacrificed for my mother and uncles,” he said. “In turn, that got the ball rolling so my brother and I also had great opportunities. My grandparents were so critical to all of this.”
Now Rose, who was appointed to Longwood’s Board of Visitors in 2024 and elected vice rector one year later, is honoring the impact of his grandparents by establishing the Abraham and Shirley Honig Endowed Professor of Chemistry. Funded by Rose and his wife, Linda, the endowed professorship is part of Longwood’s groundbreaking endowed professorship initiative and will fund the scholarly work of a Longwood faculty member in the chemistry department.
With the endowment, the Roses and their fellow donors to the university’s professorship project will enhance the academic experience for Longwood students by providing faculty with additional resources to bolster their scholarly expertise and by expanding Longwood’s contributions to broader academic discourse.
That blueprint—to improve the caliber of education by providing more practical resources for educators—stems from Rose’s upbringing. In his mother, Rose saw firsthand not only the inherent passion that exists within true scholars, but what can occur when those scholars have the means and opportunities to follow their innate thirst for knowledge. For a public university like Longwood, added resources in the form of gifts like his can expedite that impact.
“First of all, you have to have good faculty, and you have to have continuity, and this professorship helps ensure both beyond what’s possible with existing funding,” Rose said. “If the school had to rely solely on annual giving, state funding and tuition, it’s not going to maximize the chances of keeping or attracting the faculty they really want.”
For Rose, a chemistry and religion double-major at Kenyon College, his inspiration for contributing to that mission at Longwood was also influenced by what he saw of the university’s inner workings after he was appointed by former Governor Glenn Youngkin to Longwood’s Board of Visitors, the university’s state-appointed governing body.
[Longwood is] a school that’s really thinking about the next 50 to 100 years. I realized I had this window to help with that mission, to help Longwood realize its goals and visions. That’s what I’m trying to do.
David Rose, vice rector of the Board of Visitors
“[After I joined the BOV], I could see that at Longwood, every dollar matters,” Rose said. “They’re very good stewards of their monies. It’s a school that’s really thinking about the next 50 to 100 years. I realized I had this window to help with that mission, to help Longwood realize its goals and visions. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
That praise carries added weight given Rose’s profession. As principal of the Richmond-based wealth management firm Davenport & Company—whose Farmville branch sits just across the street from Longwood’s campus—Rose leads a multifaceted financial business whose services range from traditional investments in stock and bonds to retirement planning and insurance, and whose clients include individuals, businesses, non-profits, colleges and more.
And aside from his executive duties as Davenport’s principal, Rose’s expertise lies in the latter, specifically municipal finance and the nuanced economics of non-profits, local governments and institutions of higher education. His career also includes time on Wall Street and alongside former United States Treasury Secretary Bill Simon—all of which contributed to a résumé that led Youngkin to recruit and appoint him to the governing body of one of Virginia’s oldest and most storied institutions.
“When [Governor Youngkin] was pitching me on Longwood, he said it was a very well-run school, and he felt really good about it,” Rose said. “He was trying to fill certain roles, and in all the work I’ve done with not-for-profits, 501(c)(3)s, local governments and colleges and universities as a financial advisor, I understand that world.”
Rose has also grown to understand Longwood’s unique position in Virginia’s higher education landscape—first as an outsider and now, two years after his appointment to the BOV, as a full-fledged Lancer.
“Since joining the BOV, I’ve become very, very impressed with the leadership—the senior folks, the vice presidents,” he said. “Across the board, I think they’re special people at a very special place.”