$4 Million Grant to Expand Scholarships in UA’s Nationally Recognized Book Arts Program
The University of Alabama's book arts program has received a $4 million grant from the Windgate Foundation, quadrupling the Arkansas-based foundation's original $1 million investment in the program.
The new endowment will supplement existing Windgate fellowships, create graduate assistantships, provide targeted scholarship support and fund studio equipment upgrades for students pursuing an MFA in book arts, the longest-running book arts MFA program in the country.
Sarah Bryant, director of the book arts program, said the expanded support arrives at a pivotal moment.
"We have a very strong reputation nationwide and are the longest-running book arts MFA program in the country," Bryant said. "Being able to reliably fund these artists and scholars who want to study at Alabama is huge for us."
Anna Embree, who is retiring this year after 23 years teaching in the program, called the gift transformative.
"The financial support from Windgate has always been impactful, and the magnitude of this gift is going to make it even more so, reinvigorating those fellowships while being able to provide smaller support for other students in need," Embree said.
The gift builds on recent momentum for the program. A year ago, it moved from Gorgas Library into larger, renovated spaces in McLure Library.
Earlier this year, donors Tom and Carol Patterson committed $500,000 to establish the Stephen K. Miller Endowed Professorship in Book Arts.
UA's book arts program offers a 60-credit-hour MFA in fine arts focused on letterpress printing, bookbinding and papermaking, along with an undergraduate minor and both in-person and online graduate certificates.
Students have pursued community outreach through partnerships with BookStock, the Kentuck Arts Center and literacy projects with juvenile detention facilities, among others.
One student, Erasmia Schirmer Devitt, said in a UA press release that the program is increasingly important as the world marches ever toward digitization.
“From my perspective, in a world moving toward AI, I find more value in things made by your hands. The humanness of it feels alive to me,” Schirmer Devitt said. “It also shows students they can create something worth making.”
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