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Give to English

You Make Us Great

The Department of English is central to the University, and it is a critical resource for the larger community. Whatever careers they pursue, English graduates think, read, and communicate with critical intelligence, imagination, and creativity.

If you recognize the power of words not only to deliver knowledge and understanding but also to move, to shape, and to empower, supporting the Department of English is an ideal investment.

Your tax-deductible contribution provides our best students with vital encouragement and financial support. It provides our faculty with resources needed to enlarge our knowledge of language, literature, and culture. It helps to maintain a distinguished reputation for the department.

What Your Gift Can Do

You can help us attract and retain the very best students, scholars, and creative writers despite continuing declines in state support. Your help makes possible:

• A distinguished faculty
  Creating endowed chairs and professorships and supporting interdisciplinary research centers and programs will help us recruit and retain outstanding faculty.
• Excellence and competitiveness of our graduate program
  We need to ensure the excellence and competitiveness of our graduate programs so that we can compete successfully for the best faculty and brightest students. Today’s graduate students are tomorrow’s teachers and leaders.
• A diverse and engaged undergraduate student body
  Although we are attracting better students than even before, too many outstanding students choose other institutions—often for financial reasons. Merit and need-based scholarships are needed to recruit outstanding students.

Choose a Fund

The department is blessed to have endowments and other funds that support its undergraduate students, graduate students (MA, PhD, and MFA), faculty, public lectures, and other activities. This year we hope to build those that provide fellowships for PhD students in literature and MFA students in Creative Writing. Here is a list of some of the funds that we hope will provide increased support in the future.

Graduate Fellowships in Literature

Myron Allen English Fund (established by the late Mr. Allen, BA 1925, to support English students)

Mary Sue Comfort Fellowship in English (established by Ms. Comfort to support students)

Edward M. Griffin Fellowship (established in honor of Professor Griffin by Jean Griffin and former students to support graduate students)

Jean Sheung-Chi Ip Fellowship in English (established by Ms. Ip to recruit and support strong students)

Klaeber Fund (established by the late Professor Frederick Klaeber to support graduate students, especially those working in Medieval and Early Modern fields)

Virginia Glenn McDavid English Fellowship (established by Ms. McDavid, BA 1946, MA 1948, PhD 1956, to support students interested in the English language, English literature, or American literature)

Samuel Holt Monk Memorial Fellowship (established in honor of the late Professor Monk by friends and former students to support graduate student research and publication)

Richard F. Noland Fellowship in English (established in honor of the late Mr. Noland, BA 1948, by his family to recruit and support strong students)

Martin B. Ruud Fund (established in honor of the late Professor Ruud to support graduate and undergraduate students)

Leonard Unger Fellowship (established in honor of the late Professor Unger by Sherley Unger to support students in good standing in any field of English)

Dissertation Fellowships

Ruth Drake Dissertation Fellowship in English (established by the late Ms. Drake, BA 1931, to support students working on their dissertations)

Garner-McNaron-Sprengnether Dissertation Fellowship in English (established in honor of these three professors to support dissertations in the field of feminist theory and scholarship)

MFA Fellowships in Creative Writing

Michael Dennis Browne Fellowship in Creative Writing (established in honor of Professor Browne by friends and former students to support MFA students in the second or third year with preference for those working on poetry manuscripts)

Marcella DeBourg Fellowship (established in honor of the late Ms. DeBourg by her family to support students with talent and an interest in writing about women's lives)

O'Rourke Travel Fellowship in Creative Writing (established by Mr. O'Rourke to support a full-time student)