Creating a more diverse educational experience
The ACM and the Big Ten Academic Alliance are engaged in a nine-year initiative to address barriers to faculty diversity in the humanities, humanistic social sciences, and arts, especially in the context of liberal arts colleges.
Supported by an $8.1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Undergraduate and Faculty Fellows Program for a Diverse Professoriate creates structures for collaboration between undergraduate and graduate programs at the 14 liberal arts colleges in the ACM and 15 research universities — the Big Ten Academic Alliance (comprised of the 14 member institutions of the Big Ten Conference) and the University of Chicago.
The Fellows Program has four main components to support the program’s broad goal of expanding participation by underrepresented groups in the career pipeline from college student to liberal arts college professor.
- Graduate School Exploration Fellowship (GSEF) — The fellowships provide a robust set of mentoring, career development, and experiential research opportunities to a total of about 280 students at ACM colleges.
- Graduate School Exploration (GRADx) — Provides students from underrepresented backgrounds an immersive opportunity to learn about graduate study through a year-long program featuring two forums hosted at a partner Big Ten Academic Alliance campus.
- Mellon Faculty Fellowships — Tenure-track faculty fellowship appointments at ACM campuses for 33 new scholars with terminal master’s or doctoral degrees, preferably from the participating universities.
- Meetings, workshops, and summits — Discussion and knowledge-sharing about academic settings that foster a diverse faculty and hiring and promoting to diversify the professoriate.
Learn more about the Fellows Program
- Addressing barriers to faculty diversity
- Recruiting and supporting a broadly diverse faculty
- Read the press release about the Fellows Program
For more information, contact:
- ACM Senior Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Allen Linton II (312.561.5921)
