Support

Give Now                            For more information on ways
to give, contact:

John Meyers
Office of Institutional
Advancement

220 Johnston Hall
101 Pleasant St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
meye1357@umn.edu
612-625-1065
 

You Make Us Great

English graduates think, read, and communicate with critical intelligence, imagination, and creativity—crucial skills at a time when disparate groups must come together to solve the world’s grand challenges. The Department of English is a critical resource to the University, our local community, and the world. Your gift can help support the next generation of leaders and thinkers, translators and mediators.

Your tax-deductible contribution provides our best students with vital encouragement and financial support. It gives our award-winning faculty the resources needed to enlarge our knowledge of language, literature, and culture.

What Your Gift Can Do

Your contribution allows us to ensure:

  • A distinguished faculty: creating endowed chairs and professorships will help us recruit and retain outstanding faculty.
  • Excellence and competitiveness of our graduate program: faculty choose institutions that attract the best graduate students. We need to ensure the excellence and competitiveness of our graduate programs so that we may compete for the best faculty and brightest students.
  • A diverse and engaged undergraduate student body: although we are attracting better students than ever before, too many other students choose other institutions—often for financial reasons. Merit and need-based scholarships are needed to recruit many outstanding students.

Choose a Fund

There are a number of ways your gift can help support graduate and undergraduate students—the next generation of leaders and thinkers—in the Department of English. Here is a sample:

  • English Annual Fund
    This fund supports the Department of English at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities by providing students, faculty, and staff with the resources needed to expand our knowledge of language, literature, and culture.
  • The Tower Literary Arts Magazine
    This fund supports the publication of an annual magazine staffed by undergraduates through a year-long course offered by the English department featuring the very best in undergraduate fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art.

Through the generosity of donors, English is able to provide a host of scholarships for our majors. To increase that support, simply choose a fund, write its name in the "Other" space, and make a donation today.

The department is fortunate to have endowments and other funds beyond the two listed above that support our graduate students (MA, PhD, and MFA). Again, you can choose a fund from the below and enter its name into the online giving form.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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 by the late Mr. Noland (BA 1948) 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.

Graduate 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 Michael and Anne O'Rourke to support summer travel projects related to MFA students' creative work.
  • Scribes for Human Rights Fellowship
    Provides support for a student to research and write about current human rights stories in conjunction with the University's Human Rights Program.
  • Winifred Fellowship in Creative Writing - Fiction
    Provides support to third-year MFA students focusing on fiction.

Please let us know about any initiatives that you would like to support! Email English Chair Kathryn Nuernberger at knuernbe@umn.edu.