Hilliard Endowment Records
Scope and Contents
The Albert and Emily Hilliard Endowment Records consist of annual reports, correspondence, meeting minutes, nominations for candidates for the chair, exhibit brochures, and publicity material. As visiting Hilliard Scholars, highly recognized professors, authors, and artists have lectured, given literary readings, met with classes, conducted workshops and staged exhibits for UNR students, faculty, and the general public; resumes for many Hilliard Scholars are included in the collection. There is also information about the Joanne DeLongchamps house on Center Street in Reno, where several visiting Hilliard Scholars stayed during their residencies at the University. Publicity material for Hilliard programming includes issues of the "UNR Item-Miser" campus newsletter.
Several University faculty and other Nevada authors who served on Hilliard Fund committees were later inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, including William Fox, Dr. Robert M. Gorrell, Dr. James Hulse, Dr. Charlton Laird, Dr. Ann Ronald, and Professor Sessions S. Wheeler. Frank Bergon, a Professor of English at Vassar College and novelist, was a Hilliard Scholar in 1992 and inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 1998. Teresa Jordan was a Hilliard Scholar in 1994 and was one of the first Nevada writers to receive the Friends of the University Library's Silver Pen Award. The collection includes correspondence from these authors.
The poets Allen Ginsberg and Hayden Carruth provided unpublished poems so that the University's Black Rock Press could create broadsides to commemorate their visits to campus as Hilliard Scholars.
Dates
- 1952-2011
- Majority of material found within 1985-1992
Creator
- University of Nevada, Reno. Albert and Emily Hilliard Endowment (Creator, Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research. Materials must be used on-site; advance notice suggested. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.
Historical Note
Emily Robinson Hilliard was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of Charles Robinson and Sabine Antoinette, and grew up in New York City. She married Albert Hilliard in Reno in July 1933. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in language and literature from the University of Nevada in 1946.
She was a member of the Nevada Artists' Association and exhibited her oil and pastel portraits in Reno and Carson City. A short story writer and guest newspaper columnist, she was a state president of the National Pen Women and of the Reno Pen Women. She was a member of the American Association of University Women and the Alliance Francaise. She served as president of the Washoe County Democratic Women's Club and as a member of the Washoe Library Board of Trustees. She was also a life member of the Friends of the University of Nevada Library and Friends of the Washoe County Library. She was affiliated with the Unitarian Church. Emily Hilliard is listed as a Silver Benefactor in the Honor Court at the UNR campus.
She died in Reno on August 27, 1970.
Albert E. Hilliard was born on November 27, 1892, in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from the University of Iowa and obtained his law degree from George Washington Law School and was a Reno lawyer for thirty years, serving as President of the Washoe County Bar Association in 1943. In 1945, he was appointed to a standing committee for cooperation between the University and the Washoe County Bar Association.
He was active in the Washoe County Democratic Club. President Franklin D. Roosevelt endorsed him when he made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 1938, running against Senator Patrick McCarran. Hilliard was elected to the University of Nevada System Board of Regents in 1946 and served until 1950. He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Scottish Rite Bodies of Nevada, the Kerak Temple of the Shrine, the Reno Elks Lodge, and the Reno Lions Club.
Albert Hilliard died in Reno on November 6, 1961. A portion of the UNR Physical Sciences Complex was named the Albert Hilliard Memorial Plaza in May of 1970. A portrait of Hilliard by Hans Mayer-Kassel was presented to the University in December 1971 to hang in the Chemistry Building.
The Hilliards had one son, Benjamin Clarke Hilliard III.
Through a bequest from Emily Hilliard's estate, the Albert and Emily Hilliard Chair in the Humanities endowment was established in 1972, under the auspices of the College of Arts and Science. The Dean of the College functioned as the financial officer for the endowment. The endowment was to provide a chair whose occupant would be the Hilliard Distinguished Professor of the Humanities. The chair was set up as an in-residency program with the understanding that it would be filled as funds permit and appropriate projects become available. Current faculty and staff of the University of Nevada, Reno, are not eligible for appointment to the Hilliard Chair. Emeritus Professor of English Charlton Laird was appointed as the first incumbent of the Chair for Distinguished Professor in the Humanities for 1972-1973.
The Hilliard Fund is supervised by the Hilliard Committee, a group of faculty and members from the community appointed annually by the President of the University. The committee has had several names, including the Hilliard Foundation Board, the Hilliard Foundation Committee, the Albert and Emily Hilliard Fund Committee, the Hilliard Endowment Fund, and the Hilliard Memorial Fund Committee. Individual members of the faculty, academic departments, and other campus organizations submitted nominations to the committee for consideration to be appointed Hilliard Scholars. The committee selected scholars to be awarded funding to visit the campus and also selected other campus humanities projects for Hilliard funding. In June 2003, the Nevada System of Higher Education's Board of Regents approved a reorganization of the University of Nevada, Reno, which led to the establishment of the College of Liberal Arts. The College of Liberal Arts Hilliard Endowment in the Humanities provides support to bring scholars in the humanities and related fields to campus for public appearances and occasionally partners with other humanities organizations to bring speakers to Reno.
Extent
1.41 Linear Feet (2 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Albert and Emily Hilliard Endowment Records consist of annual reports, correspondence, meeting minutes, nominations for candidates for the chair, exhibit brochures, and publicity material. As visiting Hilliard Scholars, highly recognized professors, authors, and artists have lectured, given literary readings, met with classes, conducted workshops and staged exhibits for UNR students, faculty, and the general public; resumes for many Hilliard Scholars are included in the collection.
Arrangement
Arranged in the following series: 1) Hilliard Endowment Background; 2) Hilliard Committees; 3) DeLongchamps House; 4) Hilliard Newsletters; 5) Budget Reports; 6) Hilliard Scholar and Programming Nominations and Appointments; 7) Publicity Material for Hilliard Programming
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Transfered by Robert Blesse, former Chairman of the Hilliard Endowment Committee.
Separated Materials
The Ginsberg and Carruth poems have been transferred to the Black Rock Press Records, AC 0436; and photographs were transferred to University Photograph Archives as collection number UNRA-P3444.
Hilliard Endowment Fund Scholars and Grant-Supported Programming, Partial List
- Dr. Henry Glassie III, Indiana University
- Dr. Jill Johnston, New York City art critic
- Spider Kedelsky, Arts Consultant
- Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, Historian
- Dr. Susan Armitage, Washington State University
- Regionalism / Identity - Art Exhibition
- John Dufresne, Writer
- Dr. Virginia Scharff, University of New Mexico
- Dr. Herbert Lindenberger, Stanford University
- Claire Bolton, Alembic Press
- John Nichols, Writer
- Shigehisa Kuriyama, Nichibunken, International Research Center for Japanese Studies
- Novel Ideas Reading Series
- Dr. Victoria Cass, University of Colorado, Boulder
- Kevin Hartigan, Catholic Relief Service
- Dr. Donald Pisani, University of Oklahoma
- Harry Reese, University of California, Department of Art Studio
- Wole Soyinka, Writer
- Dr. Jean Marie D'Amato, Louisiana Scholars' College
- Dr. Reinhold Grimm, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Harry and Sandra Reese, Book Artists
- Dr. Jan F. Triska, Emeritus Professor, Stanford University
- Dr. Walker Conner, Trinity College
- Diane Wakoski, Poet
- Allen Ginsberg, Poet
- Dr. Basil Dmytryshyn, Emeritus Professor, Portland State University
- Dr. Cassandra L. Langer, Queens College; Hunter College; School of the Visual Arts
- Dr. Richard Hrebenar, University of Utah
- Hayden Carruth, Poet
- Rachel Rosenthal, Artist
- Dr. Frank Bergon, Vassar College
- Dr. Mary Daly, Boston College
- Tom Marioni, Artist
- Barbara Hammer, Artist
- Willie Varela, Artist
- Teresa Jordan, Writer
- Dr. William H. Beezley, Texas Christian University
- Jurgen Wolf, Artist
- June Jordan, Poet
- Dr. Juan B. Avalle-Arce, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Dr. Eunice Lipton, Art Historian
- Harold Gilliam, Writer
- Kim Cheonae, Artist
- Joel Feldman, Artist
- Dorianne Laux, Writer
- Dr. Kristal Brent Zook, University of California, Los Angeles
- Galen Rowell, Mountain Light Photography
- Wendy Ewald, Photographer
- Roberta Meyers, Dramatist
- Mark Salzman, Writer and Musician
- Gary Snyder, Poet
- Memories and Vision - Art Exhibition
- Dr. Sven Liljeblad, Dept. of Anthropology, Idaho State University - Hilliard Foundation Distinguished Lecturer in Anthropology
- Allan Bloom, Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago
- Dr. Richard Etulain, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
- Jeff Kelley, San Diego art critic
- Dr. Christine Cassel, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
- Dr. Jean D'Amato Thomas, Northwestern State University and Louisiana Scholars College
- Dr. Carolyn Allen, University of Washington
- Dr. William Arrowsmith, Boston University
- Dr. Margaret Wilkerson, University of California-Berkeley
- Professor Edith Borroff, State University of New York at Binghamton
- Carolyn Doty, novelist
- Paul H. Smith, Library of Congress
- Deborah Horrell, Artist
- Dr. Vera Norwood, University of New Mexico
- Dr. Charlton Laird, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Nevada, Reno
Creator
- University of Nevada, Reno. Albert and Emily Hilliard Endowment (Creator, Organization)
- Title
- Guide to the Hilliard Endowment Records
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Betty Glass
- Date
- July 2011
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the University of Nevada, Reno. University Archives Repository
Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center
1664 N. Virginia St.
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno NV 89557-0322 USA
775-682-5665
775-682-5724 (Fax)
specoll@unr.edu