Gift written into the history books The wife of a billionaire real estate mogul has donated $50 million to the University of Michigan's acclaimed graduate writing program. The donation is believed to be by far the largest ever gift to such a program, and comes at a time when most major gifts to higher education are supporting science, not the humanities. Helen Zell, who earned her English degree at Michigan in 1964, has supported the Michigan program with smaller gifts totalling more than $10 million over more than a decade. Zell described the new donation as an investment in some of the world's promising young poets and novelists, to ensure the books they have inside them get written, shared with the world, and allowed to work the unique magic of human self-reflection that literature offers. ``What I've watched happen with the introduction of the Internet and media and blogging, I almost feel like this part of our education is under siege," Zell said. ``The ability of fiction to develop creativity, to analyze the human psyche, help you understand people - its' critical. It's as important as vitamins or anything else. To me, it's the core of the intellectual health of human beings. The gift is the third-largest ever to the university. Her husband, Sam Zell, who endured a contentious tenure as chairman of media conglomerate Tribune Co, which he took private but then led into bankruptcy, is also a Michigan alumnus who has made substantial gifts to the university. For aspiring writers, a spot in Michigan's graduate program is already akin to winning the lottery. Just 22 of roughly 1000 applicants annually are accepted. Nationally, master of fine arts students are among the most indebted, often borrowing six figures to pay for university then struggling to pay repay their loans. But Michigan covers tuition and offers a $22,000 stipend for students while they take classes their first year, then pays them for teaching during their second. Most unusually for the field, all students receive a third, postgraduate year of support, including health insurance, to focus on their work. The bonus year, already funded by Zell, has been dubbed on campus a ``Zellowship. ``Writers should be at their desk, not at Starbucks serving coffee," she said. There are no plans to expand the program, which Zell said might dilute its quality. Rather, the gift will essentially underwrite it in perpetuity, while offering flexibility for new projects. ``What happens next is you can write it in pen, as it were, that Ann Arbor is going to be one of the places in the country where some of the most important new writing is going to be happening as far into the future as you can see," said Michael Byers, director of the program, which will be renamed for Helen Zell. US universities raised $31 billion last year, according to the Council for Aid to Education, but most of the giant, transformative gifts in recent years have provided either general support or targeted medical and scientific research. Recent large gifts include $100 million from The Grainger Foundation to the University of Illinois engineering school in January and $100 million in December to UCLA's medical school. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also recently announced a $350 million gift to Johns Hopkins University to support interdisciplinary research and student aid. Overall he has given more than $1 billion to the university, much of it focused on public health.