The Mission The Mission of the UNCF/Mellon Programs is to Transform the Academy by creating a pipeline of undergraduates who will pursue the Ph.D. with the sole intention of becoming faculty members. Our mission is to aid in the transformation of the academy through the presence of a racially and ethnically diverse faculty whose scholarship and teaching represent diverse world views, appreciation for issues of social justice and who share a commitment to continuing to develop a pipeline of scholars of color to inhabit the halls of the academy as students and faculty.
The UNCF/Mellon Programs were created in 1989 with a generous grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Designed with the goal of strengthening the number of faculty of color within the Academy, these programs target undergraduates and faculty at the consortium of 39 UNCF institutions and Hampton University. Since the Inaugural year, the Programs have instituted the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, the Summer Internship Program for Ecology Research, and the four components of the Faculty Career Enhancement Program including the Faculty/Doctoral Fellowship, the International Faculty Seminar, the Teaching and Learning Institute and the Faculty Residency Program.
The Undergraduate Fellowship Program aims to increase the number of talented intellectually engaged undergraduates who choose to enroll in Ph.D. programs in the humanities, designated sciences and social science disciplines. This program is interested in students at the sophomore level who have a serious interest in pursuing the Ph.D. and becoming college professors in one of the Mellon designated fields. Fellows work closely with faculty mentors representing their scholarly fields, participate in a summer institute, sharpen their research, writing and presentation skills and receive semester and summer stipends to assist with costs related to research and graduate school preparation.
The Faculty/Doctoral Fellowship Program enables UNCF faculty members who hold A.B.D. status to complete the Ph.D. with support of a Faculty Doctoral Fellowship. Faculty who have completed at least one academic year of teaching at their nominating institution and are pursuing a Ph.D. in a Mellon designated field are eligible to apply. Faculty applicants must be enrolled in a traditional graduate school program and must provide documentation from their graduate program that they are in good standing and hold A.B.D. status.
The International Faculty Seminar provides junior and senior faculty at UNCF member colleges and universities with an opportunity to enhance their teaching and/or scholarship in an international setting. The seminars are designed to promote meaningful links between teaching and research, to create a community of inquiry across cultures, disciplines and institutions within the historical and cultural context of the African Diaspora and to provide effective models of interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship. Locations for the International Seminar have included the Goree Institute in Dakar, Senegal and the University of Ghana in Kumasi and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
The Teaching and Learning Institutes were established to create opportunities for UNCF faculty to come together through workshops, seminars and/or mini-conferences to share strategies, scholarship and “best practices” that help to strengthen the teaching and learning environment. Selected institutions sponsor an Institute at their home campuses and invite UNCF faculty from other institutions to participate. Funding may be used to support travel, stipends and other instructional costs associated with the successful execution of the Institute.
The Faculty Residency Program provides an opportunity for selected UNCF faculty members to take up to a semester away from their home institutions to complete or begin a scholarly project. The Programs office helps to facilitate residencies at selected sites including Harvard University’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute, New York University’s Faculty Resource Network and Emory University’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Study. Tenured and tenure track faculty may identify their own choice of research site which will be subject to approval by the Programs office.
- Area Studies
- Art History
- Classics
- Computer Science
- Demography
- Earth Science
- Ecology
- English
- Ethnomusicology
- Foreign Languages
- Geology
- History
- Literature
- Mathematics
- Musicology
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Political Theory
- Religion
- Sociology
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