In her 34 years at the University of Kansas, Elizabeth Schultz’s accomplishments ran the gamut from teaching the first ecocriticism course ever offered at a Chinese university while visiting the country as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer, to spearheading — along with a cohort of female students, faculty and staff — the fight for gender equality at KU as a member of the storied February Sisters.

But Schultz, a professor emerita of English at the university, is perhaps best known today as one of the world’s foremost scholars on Herman Melville and his most famous work, “Moby-Dick.” Now, more than 15 years after her retirement from teaching, Schultz hopes to ensure the study of Melville and his contemporaries for generations to come at KU.

Her latest contribution to the university, a gift commitment of $1.5 million, will establish a permanent Herman Melville Distinguished Professorship in the English department.

With the professorship, KU will become “a hub for the scholarship and teaching of 19th century American literature,” said Anna Neill, English department chair.

“It came as a wonderful surprise, of course, and it’s a really extraordinary act of generosity on her part to support something like this,” Neill said of Schultz, whom she worked alongside for five years after joining the KU English faculty in 1996. “When you bring in top scholars, you really transform the research landscape of the department and really enhance its existing strengths.”

But, she added, Schultz herself has long been regarded as one of those “top scholars,” pioneering the study of authors — women and people of color among them — that were less commonly taught in university English classes at the time. Neill finds the gift “especially meaningful” in the sense that Schultz, “who has had such an impact on the field,” continues to do so, even in her retirement.

Schultz envisions the Melville professorship bringing to the English department an individual who will teach at least one (or several, ideally) of the great American writers of mid-19th century. Aside from Melville, that group, curated by Schultz, includes Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman.

“Moby-Dick” isn’t a requirement of the professorship, she insists. But the 1851 classic, which she first read and fell in love with as an undergrad at Wellesley College, is what spurred the idea of creating a professorship in the first place. Or, to be more specific, what she perceived as its dwindling presence in KU English classes.

“I asked myself what I could do about that, apart from going back to teaching at KU again, if anybody would have me. And I realized that one thing I might consider doing was creating a position where the likelihood of ‘Moby-Dick’ being taught would be enhanced,” Schultz said.

When the Michigan native — Schultz earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in English and American literature from her home state’s flagship school, the University of Michigan, after teaching English in Japan — joined the KU faculty in 1967, her teaching first focused on Henry James.

In that course, “Moby-Dick” held more of a supporting role, she remembers. But, in the political and social climate of the time, Melville’s work struck a chord with Schultz’s male students, who related deeply to the fears of shipmen being led on a suicidal mission by an obsessive Captain Ahab. With the Vietnam War raging across the Pacific Ocean, the threat of the draft was very real to the young men in Schultz’s class.

“If you were a mere student, you could be dragooned into a war that was not of your liking and not of your conviction. And I had lots of students coming to see me in my office to talk about that,” Schultz recalled. “They saw in ‘Moby-Dick’ there was a kind of warning that you might be on a ship of state and not be able to get off.”

Some may assume, at a first glance, that Melville’s work “is all about guys,” she said, but that’s not the case. Despite emerging from the turmoil that eventually led to the Civil War, “Moby-Dick” thoughtfully explores topics that are still plenty relevant today, as they have been throughout the 150-plus years since the novel was first published, Schultz said.

It’s a book deeply concerned with racism, capitalism and the environment. And, even though female characters are few and far between within its pages, “there are several subtexts that deal with women’s lives,” she said.

Schultz has read and re-read “Moby-Dick” dozens of times over the years, discovering something new with each read. The book, she said, has changed her life, and she’s hoping the Melville professorship will extend the same opportunity to future generations of readers.

“The truth is, I use this phrase, ‘The Great American Novel,’ and that’s a very shopworn phrase. But I do think it’s applicable to ‘Moby-Dick,'” Schultz said. “I believe it’s applicable because, in my own experience in teaching ‘Moby-Dick’ and in writing about ‘Moby-Dick’ and in just living my life, I have found that Melville has been there before me, that Melville anticipated all of the major issues that I have dealt with in my 80 years.

“The book does not wear out,” she added. “It is good for, I believe, all times in my own life, and it is good for the ages.”

Throughout her time at KU, Schultz earned several accolades for her work in the classroom, including a KU Outstanding Woman Teacher Award and HOPE Award in 1971 as well as a Mortar Board Outstanding Educator Award and a Chancellor’s Club Teaching Professorship in 1984.

Schultz, 80, is scheduled to add another to her list this fall: the CLAS Career Achievement Award, which will recognize her “distinguished teaching career and the profound impact that she has made on the lives of her students,” according to KU Endowment.

In addition to her scholarly achievements, Schultz in recent years has earned recognition for her work as an author, churning out a collection of short stories, a memoir, several essays and five books of poetry in the first decade or so after her retirement.

That’s perhaps why she insists that she couldn’t have made the Melville gift possible on her own. Schultz expresses her gratitude to her American literature teacher, Patrick Quinn, from her days at Wellesley, as well as her KU colleague Haskell Springer, the KU English department faculty, the KU Endowment Association and trustee Cathy Reinhardt.

And, of course, her family, who contributed financially to the gift, Schultz said.

“Few things are done alone,” she added. “This is really important.”