ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- The wife of billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell is giving $50 million to support the University of Michigan's acclaimed graduate writing program. The donation, to be announced Thursday, is believed to be by far the largest ever gift to such a program, and comes at a time when most major gifts to higher education are supporting science, not the humanities.

Helen Zell, who earned her English degree at Michigan in 1964, has been supporting the Michigan program with smaller gifts totaling more than $10 million over more than a decade. Five long bookshelves, nearly covering an entire wall of her Chicago apartment, are filled with books written by the graduate program's faculty and alumni, she said, and she looks forward to adding more. Graduates include writers Elizabeth Kostova, Hanna Pylvainen and Jesymn Ward.

In a telephone interview, Zell described the new donation as an investment in some of the world's promising young poets and novelists, to ensure the books they have inside them get written, shared with the world, and allowed to work the unique magic of human self-reflection that literature offers.

"What I've watched happen with the introduction of the Internet and media and blogging, I almost feel like this part of our education is under siege," Zell said. "The ability of fiction to develop creativity, to analyze the human psyche, help you understand people its' critical. It's as important as vitamins or anything else. To me, it's the core of the intellectual health of human beings."

The gift the third-largest ever to the university comes from the Zell Family Foundation, where Helen Zell is executive director, and is in her name. Her husband, who endured a contentious tenure as chairman of media conglomerate Tribune Co., which he took private but then led into bankruptcy, is also a Michigan alumnus who has made substantial gifts to the university.

For aspiring writers, a spot in Michigan's graduate program is already akin to winning the lottery. Just 22 of roughly 1,000 applicants annually are accepted. Nationally, MFA students are among the most indebted, often borrowing six figures to pay for school then struggling to pay repay their loans. But Michigan covers tuition and offers a $22,000 stipend for students while they take classes their first year, then pays them for teaching during their second.

Most unusually for the field, all students receive a third, postgraduate year of support, including health insurance, to focus on their work. The bonus year, already funded by Zell, has been dubbed on campus a "Zellowship."

"Writers should be at their desk, not at Starbucks serving coffee," she said.

Kostova, whose debut novel "The Historian" rose quickly to No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, and Ward, whose 2011 novel "Salvage the Bones" won the National Book Award, are among the program's better-known graduates. Pylvainen , whose first novel "We Sinners" won a Whiting Writers' Award last year, said the book might never have been written without the third-year fellowship.

There are no plans to expand the program, which Zell said might dilute its quality. Rather, the gift will essentially underwrite it in perpetuity, while offering flexibility for new projects.

Originally posted here:
Unusual $50 million gift for writing at Michigan