Unusual $50 million gift for writing at Michigan


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 Associated Press reports. 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…

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