In her honor

Prairie View A&M University in Texas to launch Toni Morrison Writing Program

Prairie View A&M University President Ruth J. Simmons announced March 19 that a Toni Morrison Writing Program would be established at the institution in honor of the late Lorain writer and her former student, MacKenzie Scott.

Scott, a philanthropist, who also is a writer, donated $50 million to the university in October 2020; $3 million of her gift is designated to endow the Morrison Writing Program, according to a news release from Prairie View University.

The Writing Program will include a Toni Morrison Writer-in-Residence, the release said.

Appointed annually, a different writer each year will have a one-year visiting appointment at Prairie View, where that individual will offer a seminar in writing.

The Toni Morrison Writer-in-Residence will hold public readings of the writer’s work and that of other writers to bring visibility to the importance of writing and the legacy of African American writers, especially those educated at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Morrison was a graduate of Howard University, historically Black college in Washington, D.C.

Morrison also was the Robert F. Goheen professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University when Scott was a student there.

Scott studied with Morrison.

Born Chloe Wofford on Feb. 18, 1931, in Lorain, Morrison was a prolific essayist and novelist.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Humanities Medal and the Pulitzer

Prize for Fiction, and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Her award-winning novels include “The Bluest Eye” (1970), “Sula” (1973), “Song of Solomon” (1977), “Tar Baby” (1981) and “Beloved” (1987).

Emma Joahanne Thomas-Smith, Ed.D., Prairie View University provost emerita, will oversee the Toni Morrison Writing Program, according to the release.

With decades of experience in higher education, Thomas-Smith previously led the University’s Honors Program and the Department of English and Languages.

“Faculty and staff, of both the University and area high schools, will share in the activities of the program and benefit from the writer-in-residence and other artists representing the full range of literary genres,” Thomas-Smith said.

In addition, the Toni Morrison Writing Program will sponsor a high school writing contest, the release said.

The winner of the competition will receive a college scholarship.

Morrison