When Mary Kirkland Johns died in 1993, she left the majority of her estate to the University of Florida to be used for a scholarship in memory of her first husband, Edwin C. Kirkland. Kirkland was a professor of folklore and literature at UF for almost 30 years. An expert in South Asian and southern United States folklore, he also taught at Vanderbilt University, the University of Texas, Wofford College and the University of Tennessee.

The scholarship is intended to provide assistance to a student studying folklore or Victorian English who demonstrates both financial need and academic meri