The Moran-Herrington Fellowship

Anne Herrington and Charlie Moran

The purpose of the Fellowship is to attract to our Program the best Ph.D. candidates in Composition and Rhetoric. Specifically, the endowment stipulates that it be awarded to “one or more incoming graduate students in the Department of English, whose special field is the study of Composition and Rhetoric and whose pursuit of further study in the field springs from an interest in classroom teaching.”

The Fellowship was first endowed in 2006 with a gift from Charlie and Kay Moran and additional gifts from former students and friends. Thanks to continued contributions, including from the Morans and Anne Herrington and Tina Plette, it has continued to grow: the first Fellowship provided a modest stipend for expenses in 2006; this year we are able to offer a single course release (from a 1/2 load) to an incoming graduate student for the upcoming academic year (2013-14). With the impending retirement of Anne, Charlie and Kay proposed renaming the Fund, thereby honoring Charlie and Anne’s many collaborations, including in work with graduate students over the years.

As a recruitment tool, the fellowship offers new students both financial support and time to focus on their studies in that all important first year. About receiving the fellowship, Liane Malinowski has said that “receiving it helped me to feel like I would be a valued member of the community once I was a student here.” Christian Pulver comments that it was “a great honor. Not only did it provide welcome financial support, it also affirmed in me the need for continued research on the impact computer technologies are having on our literacy practices.”