Ellen T. Blaney instilled in her children a broad love of reading and intellectual curiosity. Her library contained an eclectic offering of everything from philosophy, religion, history, and literary journalism to theatre, music, and film. Authors she admired ranged from Tielhard de Chardin to Malcom X to Woodward and Bernstein. Always a proponent of the liberal arts, she also enjoyed the guilty pleasure of an occasional celebrity biography.
The Ellen T. Blaney Humanities Prize recognizes the best single book, essay/article, or creative work from the scholarly reports of the previous academic year.