Alyssa M. Taylor Book Endowment

The Alyssa M. Taylor Book Endowment was established by her loving aunt, Nana, to honor Alyssa, a bright and promising Loyola freshman, who was killed by a teenage drunk driver. All who encountered Alyssa were captivated by her friendly charm, striking beauty and kind nature. Alyssa’s care for others and her love for reading are memorialized in this gift that annually goes to purchase new books for the Monroe Library.

The Alyssa Taylor Endowment is especially poignant because Alyssa’s aunt, a police commander, has witnessed the grief wrought by stories like Alyssa’s too often; also, because the endowment gift is money which Nana had saved for a trip to Europe with Alyssa. It is given in the hope that Alyssa’s story might keep one young person from driving while drunk.

Alyssa Taylor was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 9, 1986, and considered it home, although she had also lived in Okinawa, Japan, New Jersey, and Mississippi as part of a Marine family. She graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School and was excited to have begun classes as a Political Science major at Loyola University in the fall of 2004. Alyssa was homeward bound when on October 1, 2004, her vehicle was struck head-on at the Biloxi Bay Bridge by a young drunk driver, who was killed instantly. Alyssa, brave and strong, survived for fifteen months after her injury, in spite of horrific brain trauma. Her accident touched many across the Gulf Coast who prayed for her full recovery. However, recovery was not to be, and she died following cranial surgery at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., on December, 15, 2005.

BIENVENUE CLASSICS FUND

A gift from his former students, the Bienvenu Classics Fund was established to honor Fr. Emmett Bienvenu, S.J., for his life-long devotion to teaching the young and the not-so-young the beauties of the Latin and Greek languages and their literatures. The fund supplements the Monroe Library's collecting of materials in classical studies.

ROSALEE MCREYNOLDS ENDOWMENT FOR SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

The family and friends of Rosalee McReynolds, Loyola's first Special Collections Librarian, established an endowment in her memory which purchases books for Special Collections. The focus of the endowment is the book as art and the history of the book, and supports Loyola's curriculum in the history of printing and also in bookmaking and design in the Department of Visual Arts.

SEGOVIA FUND

The Segovia Fund was established through a bequest of Andreas Segovia, the world-renowned guitar player and teacher, for the purchase of printed and recorded music for the guitar, music of Spain and its colonies, and Spanish literature. Mr. Segovia was a visiting teacher at Loyola during the 1970s.

MAILHES MUSIC FUND

Mona Mailhes (graduate alumna in Education) gave an endowment for the purchase of music materials in memory of her mother. Mrs. Mailhes was a great lover of music, and found special comfort in listening to music toward the end of her life. The Mailhes endowment in the Monroe Library is paired with an endowment in the College of Music for scholarships for music students.

CHARLES SENS OPERA ENDOWMENT

Charles Sens, and alumnus of the College of Music, had a distinguished career as a singer, dancer, and composer, followed by a second career as a librarian in the Music Division of the Library of Congress, left his large collection of opera recordings, many unique items, to the Monroe Library, as well as an endowment to enhance the collection over time.

WALKER PERCY AND HIS CIRCLE COLLECTION

The Monroe Library's Percy Collection is a gift of the research materials, both books and papers, of Fr. Patrick Samway, S.J., Ph.D., who is one of the biographers of Walker Percy, Louisiana's most well-know author of literary fiction. The collection of several thousand volumes, many signed first editions, as well as letters from Southern authors associated with Percy, complement the Percy archives at the University of North Carolina, Mr. Percy's alma mater.

GIROUX COLLECTION

The Robert Giroux Collection is a gift from the distinguished editor and publisher and his friend, Charles Reilly. Mr. Giroux edited many of the most distinguished authors of the mid-20 th century, including Walker Percy, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. The collection consists of approximately 900 volumes from his personal library, many inscribed to Mr. Giroux by his authors, as well as correspondence, photographs, and annotated proof copies.

Contributions can be made online.