University of Virginia alumnus and Board of Visitors member John A. Griffin has given $5 million to endow a series of need-based scholarships for McIntire School of Commerce undergraduates and to support the school’s Next Century Building Fund.
The endowed gift will be matched with $5 million through UVA’s Bicentennial Scholars Fund for a total investment of $10 million to create a series of scholarships named in honor of Griffin’s mother, Alice V. Griffin.
Alice Griffin was a prolific scholar, drama critic and noted educator who died in 2012. She completed her undergraduate studies at George Washington University and went on to earn a Ph.D. in dramatic literature and Shakespeare from Columbia University, where she was a Fisher Fellow. In 1949, she began teaching English literature at Hunter College’s north campus, which later became Lehman College of The City University of New York. Griffin helped found the graduate English program at Lehman and served as director of the program until her retirement from academia in 1991.
Alice Griffin also wrote 11 books on theater and gave back to the literature and academic community through her own philanthropy by establishing graduate-level fellowship programs at Florida Atlantic University, for women seeking to advance their careers; and at Lehman College, to assist graduate students in the English Department seeking master’s degrees. In 1994, John Griffin endowed the Alice Griffin Professorship in English Literature in UVA’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences in honor of his mother.
John Griffin’s new commitment takes advantage of an opportunity to support another high priority for McIntire: its planned academic complex expansion, designed to foster student success and strengthen community connections. The Alice V. Griffin Bicentennial Scholarship endowment will help offset financial aid costs borne by the McIntire School that can now be used to advance the new building project.
