Erin Davis (MFA in Fiction, ’21) is the first recipient of the James L. “Jim” Banks III Memorial Endowed Scholarship, which offers support for an MFA graduate student in the Studio curriculum.
Erin graduated Magna Cum Laude from the College of Charleston in 2018. An Honors College student, Erin majored in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing, and she minored in British Studies and Environmental & Sustainability Studies. Erin worked closely with Prof. Bret Lott on a novel-in-progess and closely with Dr. Tim Carens on a Independent Study course, which involved research into the intersection of ecological consciousness and literary criticism in Romantic poetry and nature writing about Scotland. Erin began her research when she was living and working in the Scotland as a volunteer on organic farms. Her Independent Study proposal won the English Department’s Macy Ezell Cook Scholarship, which is awarded annually to a student whose project is deemed especially promising, innovative, or academically substantial.
The James L. “Jim” Banks III Memorial Endowed Scholarship was established in 2019 to honor the late Jim Banks, a College of Charleston English alumnus, described by his loved ones and former professors as a “life-long learner” who made great literature and an appreciation of the beauty of the natural world central to his life. Nan Morrison, Professor Emerita of English, recalls:
“Jim Banks came to the College of Charleston as a freshman with an abiding passion for literature. That passion deepened as he continued his studies and later throughout his life. This deep love was accompanied but not diminished by a keen critical faculty. A perfectionist and humanist, he believed that good writing of all kinds could empower every human being. During his undergraduate career he honed his skills as a poet and critic. His Bachelor’s Essay was, and still is, one of the most incisive studies of the philosophic meaning and the artistic use of the metaphor of the theater in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”
The MFA Creative Writing Program is grateful to Jim’s family and friends. We are humbled and inspired by this opportunity to help honor Jim Banks and his enduring love of arts and letters.