Gift to Endow Fellowship for Doctoral Students in English

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A bequest to the UB College of Arts and Sciences is providing a competitive edge for the Department of English in attracting top-notch doctoral students through increased fellowship money.

Sterling and Kathryn Doubrava have given $181,000 to UB through a trust to establish the Marilyn A. Doubrava Endowment Fund in honor of their daughter, Marilyn, a 1958 graduate of the English department who died in 1995.

Marilyn's brother, Max, a 1959 graduate of the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, remembered his sister as a creative musician, painter and poet, and was delighted that his parents, who died in 1997, chose to honor the university that played such an important role in her life.

"My sister was very unhappy until she transferred to UB, and what she found here was a complete English department and a path for her life," Doubrava said.

Mark Shechner, professor and chair of the English department, was surprised by the gift, which he says is the first named fellowship endowment in his recollection. "This couldn't have come at a better time, as we strive to be recognized as one of the best graduate programs in the country," Shechner said.

He added that the money will be used to augment other teaching and non-teaching fellowships, "thus enabling us to raise our fellowship offers to selected graduate applicants, and to attract those high-caliber students who might have gone elsewhere without the extra money."

The first Doubrava Fellowship recipient is Roberto Tejada, a photography museum curator at the University of Texas. Tejada will begin his doctoral studies this fall and will continue to receive the Doubrava fellowship for the next four years.

As the endowment grows, the English department plans to add additional fellowships so there will be four Doubrava fellowships at any given time.

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