Family and friends of Christine Geraldson Lassiter endowed this fund in 2001 to memorialize Christine for dedicated service to her profession and her love for learning. It supports a poetry and fiction reading series or a graduate fellowship in the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

In 1973, Christine received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Florida. She later earned a teaching certificate and master’s degree in literature with an emphasis on theater. Lassiter taught classes in creative writing and the arts at the University of North Carolina, East Tennessee and Appalachian State University. The last 14 years of her life, Christine lived in Asheville, NC, where she was actively involved in her community. She was a founding member of the Asheville Playback Theater and finished her first screenplay, Stripping Down, shortly before her death in February 2001.