Novelist gives $23,000 to KU scholarship fund honoring murdered alumna

Laura Moriarty

Novelist Laura Moriarty was a graduate student in English at the University of Kansas in 1999 when she heard about the murder of KU alumna Amy Watkins.

That year Watkins, s'96, was killed by two men in New York City as she walked home from an internship where she worked with victims of domestic violence.

"I remember thinking that we knew some of the same people," said Moriarty, who earned a bachelor's degree in social welfare at KU in 1993. "I realized she was younger than I was and it just made me so sad. It was this terrible thing that sits with you. That could happen to me, I thought. To anyone."

Now Moriarty, who has just published her first novel, has added almost $23,000 to the Amy Watkins Scholarship Fund at the Kansas University Endowment Association. The Watkins scholarship will be awarded to undergraduate students in the School of Social Welfare, with a preference for those specializing in domestic violence or families at risk. The scholarship, which originally was established with memorial contributions in 1999, will be awarded for the first time in the spring for the 2004-05 academic year.

Amy Watkins

"Amy Watkins was such a memorable student," said Alice Lieberman, social welfare associate professor and one of Watkins and Moriarty's former instructors. "She was just so loved. She had a real interest in poor women and their children and was great with them. As a social worker, the best thing you can give people is hope for the future, and Amy was particularly talented at that.

"Laura is a modest, extremely generous person herself," added Lieberman, "and we're thrilled that she has chosen to honor Amy in this way. This is wonderful."

Moriarty, s'93, g'99, author of "The Center of Everything," was formally recognized by the School of Social Welfare during the school's annual meeting of its advisory board on Sept. 25. At the event, Moriarty read a passage from her novel that describes the KU campus. Evelyn, the teen-age heroine of the story, first visits Lawrence with a teacher who encourages her to consider college. KU figures prominently in the novel's hopeful ending.

Moriarty, whose family moved often to follow her father's military career, graduated from high school in Montana. She said her arrival in Lawrence as a KU freshman was like coming home. "This is such an open-minded place. People are kinder here. The first time I walked through campus, it gave me such a sense of wonder and hope that it might as well have been Paris."

The author will move back to Kansas this fall after three years in Portland, Maine, where she was a social worker balancing four jobs when she completed the novel. To her astonishment, her agent sold it to Hyperion Books within two days-for $400,000. The windfall, Laura said, enabled her to make the gift.

"It was very strange to receive that after being poor for so long, and I've always grown up with the idea that you should always give away 10 percent of what you earn," Moriarty said. "Also, I've always felt this-this connection to Amy. Her life had brushed up against mine. I like the idea of helping others the way I was helped with scholarships and other support when I was a student."

Moriarty's gift will count toward the $500 million goal of KU First: Invest in Excellence, the largest fund-raising campaign in KU history. KU Endowment is conducting KU First on behalf of KU through 2004 to raise funds for scholarships, fellowships, professorships, capital projects and program support. KU Endowment is an independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management organization for KU.