A generous donation of $1 million from Dr. Patricia Merivale to UBC’s Green College was announced by Dr. Emma Cunliffe, the Principal of Green College, at the college’s annual welcome dinner.

Dr. Merivale is a distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of English Language and Literatures at UBC, where she began her illustrious academic career in 1962 holding an A.B. from Berkley, an MA from Oxford, and a PhD from Harvard. Her gift will support the creation of the Merivale Visitors in Residence Program at Green College.

“Graduate colleges played an integral part in my professional development,” said Dr. Merivale. “I believe that Green College is the perfect place to invite thinkers from around the globe, to inspire discussions that can move our world forward—and provide the same opportunities I benefited from, to present and future graduate students.”

Dr. Cunliffe says the Merivale Visitors in Residence Program will “support Green College’s unique mandate to bring people from different backgrounds, disciplines and career stages together in an inclusive residential environment that encourages the exchange of ideas and welcomes different ways of thinking. It will offer unparalleled opportunities for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, UBC faculty and the broader community, to interact with visiting scholars in an environment that fosters collaboration—sparking conversations that will help shape a thriving society.”

Dr. Merivale notably became the only female full professor in UBC’s Faculty of English by 1972. She specializes in Comparative Literature: modern fiction, narrative structures, Gothic and fantastic fiction. Her writing includes: Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times (1968), she co-edited the influential volume Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism with Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1999 and wrote dozens of articles on a variety of comparative topics including: Borges and Nabokov, Yeats and Rilke, Rushdie and Grass. Her scholarly focus includes Canadian and European comparative literature, examining the works of Joy Kogawa, Anne Hebert, Margaret Atwood, and Hubert Aquin, as well as an emphasis on metaphysical detective stories and apocalyptic artist parables.

Dr. Merivale has been an active supporter of Green College since its inception. She also created the John Grace Memorial Fund for Visitors in Residence at Green College. In addition to her generous support of Green College, Dr. Merivale has also gifted her family’s invaluable rare book collection to the UBC Library. Her new gift is part of FORWARD, the campaign for UBC, with the promise and potential to advance healthy lives, a healthy planet and healthy societies.

“We are tremendously grateful for Patricia’s strong commitment to Green College and UBC, and for her visionary and inspiring leadership,” said Dr. Cunliffe. “Her new gift will help Green College residents and visitors generate the interdisciplinary insights we need to address society’s most vexing problems—to the wider benefit of our world.”