PAMLA is delighted to announce the establishment of the Catherine Montfort French Studies Fund, made possible through the extraordinary generosity of Dr. Catherine Montfort, former PAMLA President, 2019 recipient of the PAMLA Distinguished Service Award, and Professor Emerita of French at Santa Clara University. In September 2025, Dr. Montfort pledged $50,000 to begin two scholarship funds. Catherine contributed $30,000 in stock as a first installment. Her important donation inaugurates a new, enduring source of support for scholars working in French language, literature, and culture.
This wonderful gift enables PAMLA to support two annual awards:
- The Catherine Montfort International French Scholarship Award
- Supporting one or more French scholars, authors, or artists based outside the United States, to help them attend the annual PAMLA conference and share their work.
- The Catherine Montfort French Graduate Student Scholarship Award
- Supporting one or more graduate students whose research focuses on French literary, linguistic, or cultural studies.
These awards reflect PAMLA’s long-standing commitment to the study of French and Francophone humanities. Dr. Montfort’s generosity ensures that international collaboration, disciplinary vitality, and emerging scholarship in French studies will continue to flourish across our organization.
Beginning in late spring 2026, PAMLA will open its first round of applications for both scholarship programs. Awardees will be selected based on the quality of their scholarly proposals and their engagement with French studies broadly defined.
PAMLA expresses its deepest appreciation to Dr. Montfort for her remarkable commitment to our scholarly community, and we look forward to celebrating the recipients of these awards for many years to come.
We will be thanking Professor Catherine Montfort for her support of PAMLA, French studies and scholars, and the Humanities at the start of our PAMLA 2025 Presidential Address in San Francisco (on Friday, November 21, at 4:50 pm in the InterContinental San Francisco’s Grand Ballroom B/C). Please join us to thank Dr. Catherine Montfort.