The Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at UT Dallas recently announced a major gift from alumnus Richard Kurjan MS’82 to name the school’s Center for Translation Studies after its founder, Dr. Rainer Schulte.
According to Kurjan, the gift acknowledges the world-renowned expert in literature translation who he credits with deeply impacting his life and career. The center will be called the Rainer Schulte Center for Translation Studies.
“Rainer instilled in me the inseparability of source and context (in translation),” said Kurjan, a retired financial services consultant at a recent ceremony marking the center’s naming. “He taught me how to think in that manner, and it enabled me to relate to my clients and prospects and to understand their needs.”
In 1975, Kurjan found himself in an unusual situation while searching for a university graduate program to attend. He had applied to several schools with respected humanities programs, including Ohio University, and was invited by a professor there to visit the school. Schulte, then an Ohio University professor of literature and foreign languages, spent an entire day recruiting Kurjan, who was convinced this was the professor he wanted to study with. The only problem was, Schulte had just accepted a position as a professor of language and translation studies with a virtually unknown university in Texas – The University of Texas at Dallas.
“Do you want to go there?” Kurjan said he recalled Schulte asking him.
Kurjan followed Schulte to Richardson, Texas, where he earned a master’s degree under the renowned professor. In 1978, Schulte established the UT Dallas Center for Translation Studies in the then School of Arts and Humanities, which grew to become a leading program in the United States for the professional development of students and academics in the field of translating works of literature.
“This makes me think about the power and the associations that are inside a word,” said Schulte at the ceremony announcing the center’s naming in his honor. “That’s what I have tried to cultivate with my students, and Dick Kurjan was one of my students who understood the importance of learning the internal creativity of words.”
In 2021, Kurjan and his wife established the Trish and Richard Kurjan Fund for the Center for Translation Studies with a major gift to UTD to support Schulte’s continued work in the field of language and literary translation and the education of students in the field.
“Alums are our most prized stakeholders,” said Dr. Nils Roemer, AHT dean. “An educator’s true measure of success is different from the number of awards or accolades earned. The true measure of success is our students and their commitment to serving their communities, collectively and individually.
“A story like the one of Mr. Kurjan and Dr. Schulte is one that every educator dreams of to be able to tell, and that’s why I am eternally grateful to our dedicated faculty who selflessly dedicate most of their waking hours to uplift the next generations.”