City College announces Elyse L. Nass Endowed Scholarship Fund

The City College of New York is pleased to announce the creation of The Elyse L. Nass Endowed Scholarship Fund. 

The annual fund will support CCNY students enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program and/or the Department of Theater and Speech. It will allow the departments to offer generous aid in the form of scholarships, stipends, and other means of support for students pursuing careers in writing, especially in the field of playwrighting. 

“The MFA Program in Creative Writing is deeply grateful for this new scholarship from the Elyse L. Nass Scholarship Fund,” said Michelle Valladares, Director of the M.F.A. in Creative Writing program.  “The scholarship will allow the Theater Program and the M.F.A. to coordinate a playwriting track within our mutual programs that will highlight and benefit students who are interested in the genre.  This generous grant is a game-changer and will help us highlight playwriting and its related arts at the City College of New York.”

“The Elyse L. Nass Scholarship Fund represents a pivotal point for us in the Department of Theatre and Speech.  We have so many talented students who have so much to say about the lives they’ve lived and the lives that they’re about to live, and this gift will help give them the support and encouragement they need to help them develop their voices,” said Rob Barron, Chairperson of the Department of Theatre and Speech. “We already have the experience of being able to turn on the television or sit in a theatre and say, ‘Hey - that actor graduated from City College!”’  And in the near future, thanks to the Nass Scholarship, I look forward to also saying, ‘And look - this was written by a graduate of City College!’”

“The Foundation is deeply grateful to the Nass family for its dedication to public education and student success. This gift is done in appreciation of the creativity of our students and will capture the voices of CCNY scholars. The Creative Writing and the Theatre and Speech Program are an integral part of CCNY’s vision of the arts. This endowed fund will propel our students as they continue to make their voices heard,” said Annika Lüdke, Manager of Corporate Relations & Foundations Grants in The Foundation for City College. 

Elyse L. Nass (1947-2019) was a native New Yorker, an award-winning playwright, and an early champion of gender equality and the rights of the elderly. 

Her seminal one-act plays including “Second Chance,” “Admit One,” and “Avenue of Dreams” have been performed throughout New York City and worldwide, including at the San Diego Repertory Theater, Los Angeles’ Company of Angels, and TheaterWorks in Singapore. 

In the summer of 1970, Nass’ first full-length play, “The Marriage Museum,” was one of the first winners of a nationwide playwriting contest sponsored by Brooklyn College and was produced as part of their New American Playwright Series.

The Nass family said that the scholarship was in the spirit of who Elyse was, constantly supportive of others and devoted to the craft of writing. 

About the City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.