Gift establishes Rose Endowed Fellowship in Creative Writing
Posted by Jayme Blaschke
University News Service
March 21, 2012
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(Left to right, back row) Cynthia Opheim, associate provost, Dan Lochman, chair of the department of English, Michael Hennessy, dean of the college of liberal arts, Tom Grimes, director of the MFA program. (Left to right, front row) John Powell, Mary Powell, Denise M. Trauth, president of Texas State University-San Marcos. |
The nationally-recognized graduate creative writing program at Texas State University-San Marcos has a new endowed fellowship thanks to a gift from the W. Morgan and Lou Claire Rose Trust.
The $650,000 gift establishes the W. Morgan and Lou Claire Rose Endowed Fellowship in Creative Writing at the university. The endowment fund will be used to attract outstanding talent to the graduate creative writing program at Texas State, as well as to offer recognition and support to worthy writers entering the program.
The trust, managed by Mary and John Powell since its establishment in 1999, has previously contributed more than $436,000 to scholarship and fellowship awards at Texas State.
“All her life, Claire singled out young people to help, when they demonstrated talent and goals and the desire to work hard,” said Mary Powell. “I believe that she would be pleased to see how her gift has benefited the creative writing program.”
Rose fellows will be selected from among students accepted into the master of fine arts program in creative writing. Fellows will be required to engage in research related to the creative writing process. Texas State will also establish two new graduate research assistantship positions in the English department to support Rose fellows and other outstanding MFA creative writing students.
Rose was an unpublished but prolific novelist, penning eight novels in the 10 years prior to her death in 1997. Her love of reading and writing led to her long-term friendship with her attorney’s wife, Mary Powell (1996 MFA-Creative Writing) of New Braunfels and eventually to the establishment of the trust, named after Rose and her late husband, W. Morgan Rose.