February 16, 2000
Internet entrepreneur makes $2 million gift to support UW’s nationally ranked creative writing program
Ravi Desai may be an Internet entrepreneur, but his first love is poetry. To ensure that poetry continues to thrive at the University of Washington, he has made a $2 million gift to the UW’s Creative Writing Program. The gift will fund a poet-in-residence program and will provide fellowship support for promising graduate students.
Desai, 30, a native of Ithaca, N.Y., is president and CEO of Logical Information Machines, a columnist for Worth magazine, and a weekly commentator on America Online. He also is chairman and founder of The Desai Foundation, which he endowed to support poetry in America. It is the largest poetry-focused foundation in the world, with the eminent poets Robert Pinsky, the UW’s Heather McHugh, William Logan, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and Charles Simic as members of its board. “Supporting poetry has certainly attracted its share of attacks, but I still think there’s a role for difficult poetry in our culture, and I want to contribute to its creation,” says Desai.
In October 1999, Desai e-mailed UW President Richard L. McCormick, asking if the UW was interested in discussing a major gift that Desai was willing to make to support the teaching of poetry. Desai had never visited the UW, but he was aware of the outstanding quality of the Creative Writing Program, which three years ago was ranked 10th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. Discussions ensued, chiefly by e-mail, and an agreement was signed when Desai finally visited campus later that month.
Desai studied poetry as an undergraduate at Harvard University, earning degrees in English literature and physics. He spent one year in a master’s program in creative writing but went on to earn an MBA from the University of Chicago instead. Desai worked for Bain & Co. — in South Africa, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco — before leaving to start TheStreet.com, a website that provides financial information and advice to investors. He then served as managing director of Scient, a leading web consulting company, before heading Logical Information Machines.
Desai’s interest in the UW’s Creative Writing Program grew out of his appreciation for the poetry of faculty members Heather McHugh and Rick Kenney. The exceptional creative writing faculty includes three MacArthur Fellows — Kenney, Charles Johnson and Linda Bierds — and a National Book Award winner, Johnson.
Desai’s goal is to expose students to the brightest talents among living poets. He remembers studying with exceptional writers as an undergraduate — including Seamus Heaney, Lucie Brock-Broido, Jane Shore and Stephen Tapscott — and wants other students to share a similar experience. “If we encourage programs of excellence around the country,” he explains, “and make poetry a financially acceptable compromise, who knows what we will get to read in the future — more of the extraordinary work that we already see in America. Think about the work of Carl Phillips, or Rick Kenney, or Heather McHugh.”
The $2 million gift will be allocated evenly between the poet-in-residence program, which will bring talented visiting poets to campus to work with undergraduate and graduate students, and the graduate fellowship program that lessens the financial burden of promising poets in the MFA program.
“This generous gift will have an enormous impact on our Creative Writing Program,” says McCormick. “Fellowship support for students in the humanities is in short supply. Ravi Desai’s passion for poetry and his extraordinary gift will strengthen an already strong program, by permitting us to be more competitive in attracting the very best students. And his gift will also enable these students to be exposed to some of the best poets of our time. We are deeply grateful to him for his vision and for his interest in the University of Washington.”
