The Myrtie Allen Kershaw Lectureship on Poetry and the Fine Arts was established in 1960 by a bequest from Myrtie Allen Kershaw of Kent, Ohio, who indicated in her will that such a fund should go to a college chosen by her friend and executrix of her estate, Elizabeth Clark Bell. Because of Mrs. Bell's personal interest in Mount Union College, where she was a student in 1932-33 and where her uncle, Robert E. Stauffer, was a teacher and librarian for many years, she designated Mount Union to receive the fund. The income is used to bring periodically to the College a person of distinction, for one or more lectures on ancient or modern poetry, the fine arts, or music or for an original performance in one of these fields.