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About

The Mellon Partners for Humanities Education program aims to further humanities education and research at five colleges and universities in the southeast. Generously funded by a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the program encourages shared resources and collaboration between:

The partnership supports faculty development on all campuses involved; seeks to improve graduate education at Vanderbilt while preparing students to meet the needs of diverse types of institutions; and enhances undergraduate education at partner schools, as they prepare their students for success in a globalized world.

Resources include:

  • Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships are awarded to individuals who recently have received PhDs in the humanities or humanistic social sciences from Vanderbilt. The two-year fellowships provide salary, benefits, and a research fund, and offer teaching and service opportunities at Berea, Fisk, TSU, and Tougaloo.
  • Specialized training opportunities are available to Vanderbilt faculty, graduate students, and recent PhDs, as well as faculty at partner institutions, through the Vanderbilt Digital Humanities Center, funded by the Mellon Digital Humanities grant. Additionally, there are workshops and colloquia available throughout the year on various topics, such as teaching underserved populations, creating sustainable digital projects at institutions with limited infrastructure, and forging cross-institutional collaborations.
  • Faculty collaboration opportunities offer yearly funding to support faculty collaborations across two or more of the partner institutions (Berea, Fisk, TSU, Tougaloo, and Vanderbilt). The awards range from one to twenty thousand dollars, and support three types of activities: (1) research projects involving faculty from two or more partner institutions; (2) research, demonstrations, performances, or other academic activities by faculty and students from one institution that would include outreach to a partner school; and (3) sponsored visits of 1-3 weeks of faculty from partner institutions to any other partner school to use available resources and engage with faculty and students around research or teaching.

Contact Us

Bonnie J. Dow, Director of the Mellon Partners in Humanities Education Program
Vanderbilt College of Arts & Science Dean of Academic Affairs
Professor of Communication Studies
350 Buttrick Hall
bonnie.j.dow@vanderbilt.edu

Angela Sutton, Assistant Director of the Mellon Partners in Humanities Education Program
Assistant Professor in the Humanities
angela.c.sutton@vanderbilt.edu