Wallace Stegner Center Receives Major Gift from C. Comstock Clayton Foundation


Oct 03, 2022 | Stegner Center

Grace Clayton Behle

The S.J. Quinney College of Law is honored to announce that the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment has received a new endowment gift of $500,000 from the C. Comstock Clayton Foundation. The gift will be used to support fellowships for law students with a demonstrated interest in environmental or natural resources law and policy.

The gift establishes the Grace Clayton Behle Fellowship Fund, which will be managed together with the college’s existing Calvin & Hope Fox Behle Fellowship Fund as part of the Behle Endowment. Together, the Behle fellowships will support four JD students each year, providing them with a tuition reduction benefit and a monthly stipend to help defer academic and living expenses.

The Behle Endowment funds represent a commitment of roughly $1 million to support the next generation of environmental attorneys, and are in addition to other funds endowed to support budding environmental and natural resources lawyers.

“Grace Clayton Behle would be pleased by the addition of the fellowships that bear her name […] at the Wallace Stegner Center,” said Beth Inghram, who is a foundation trustee. “As a lifelong resident of Salt Lake City with deep family connections to the region, she loved Utah, the mountains, and the Western landscape. She would laud the work that the Stegner Center does to preserve these lands for future generations.”

“The new Grace Clayton Behle fellowships will significantly enhance the Stegner Center’s ability to attract top-flight students interested in environmental law to the S.J. Quinney College of Law,” said Professor Bob Keiter, who is director of the Wallace Stegner Center. “The new fellowships will also provide these students with important financial support while studying here. Our faculty—and, more importantly, our students—are deeply appreciative of this generous gift.”

You can learn more about these fellowship funds, as well as other fellowships and scholarships available to students through the Wallace Stegner Center, on the center’s awards and fellowships page.


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