UTSA to receive NEH challenge grant for professorship

(Feb. 14, 2002)--The University of Texas at San Antonio has been chosen for a $100,000 challenge grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to help establish a distinguished professorship in literature and the humanities in the Department of English, Classics and Philosophy. To receive the grant, UTSA must raise an additional $300,000 for the professorship by 2005.

The endowed professorship will support UTSA's proposed Ph.D. in English, which will combine traditional training with ethnic minority studies. The innovative cross-cultural doctoral program will emphasize Latino/a and African American literature and the college-level teaching of writing, especially in institutions with diverse student populations. Approval of the program by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is anticipated this spring.

"The NEH challenge grant will provide an outstanding start to raising the funds for an endowed professorship that will attract a scholar of international and national recognition in literature and the humanities," said Linda Woodson, chair of the
Department of English, Classics and Philosophy.

Alan E. Craven, dean of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts, said that the university's Ph.D. in English is being viewed as a national model because of the uniqueness of the curriculum and the quality of the faculty. "Combined with the existing faculty, which is extremely strong, and with the new Sue E. Denman Distinguished Chair in American Literature, which is being endowed by the George W. Brackenridge Foundation, the NEH challenge grant will provide a very solid foundation for the new Ph.D. in English," he said.

In a congratulatory letter to Woodson, NEH chairman Bruce Cole noted that UTSA was one of only six universities in the nation to receive a challenge grant for 2002. "This is a high honor," he said, adding that UTSA's proposal was reviewed by leading scholars with experience in long-term planning for the humanities. "These evaluators applauded your university's decision to bring a major scholar to its new doctoral program in English."

Craven said the Sue E. Denman Distinguished Chair should be filled by the fall semester 2003 and that the distinguished professorship will follow when matching funds become available.

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