A $2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will establish a new pre- and postdoctoral fellowship program designed to improve the career chances of humanities scholars from communities underrepresented in the academy and students facing such challenges as economic hardship or being a first-generation college graduate. The three-year fellowships will also be open to non-minority candidates who work on topics related to underrepresented minorities.

The program is part of the College of Arts and Sciences' strategy to encourage and attract a diverse faculty at Cornell. One of the problems confronting young minority scholars is that they are so much in demand that they enter the professorial ranks less far along -- and often at an earlier age -- than their colleagues, and six years later may not have enough research accomplishments to qualify for tenure.

"The hope is that this three-year package will prove competitive enough to prevent some strong job candidates from going on the tenure track prematurely," said Walter Cohen, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

The new fellowships are designed to complement the college's success with the Mellon-Mays program in preparing and sending minority students to highly ranked doctoral programs. As in the Mellon-Mays program, weekly seminars and an annual conference will provide a platform for fellows to work with senior scholars and present their work to a larger audience.

Cohen believes the program could have a long-term positive impact by increasing the number of successful underrepresented minority faculty and of faculty in and out of minority-related fields who can mentor and encourage promising undergraduates. "We hope that other research universities will adopt similar approaches," he said.

Provost Kent Fuchs points out that the issues the program addresses -- the need to encourage young researchers from underrepresented groups to develop a substantial publication record before being snapped up for tenure-track jobs, as well as the importance of increasing the pool of mentors for younger scholars at the undergraduate and graduate levels -- are relevant across subject matters.

"We will therefore be looking to learn from it, and not in the humanities alone," said Fuchs.

Linda Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.