Howard University establishing an endowed Chair in honor Of Toni Morrison

Howard University, a leading private Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in Washington, D.C., is establishing an endowed faculty chair to honor Toni Morrison, one of its most famous and highly decorated alums.

The announcement, made on February 10, indicated that the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities would be funded using US$3 million from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott’s US$40 million gift to the University. That gift, made in 2020, is the largest single private donation in Howard’s history.

There is notable symmetry in the Morrison Chair being funded by Mackenzie Scott’s gift. As an undergraduate Scott studied creative writing under Morrison at Princeton. And when Scott’s first novel, The Testing of Luther Albright, won an American Book Award, Morrison praised the book as “a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart”.