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Eligibility

Who can participate?

In order to be eligible for MMUF, students must first be enrolled at one of the MMUF member institutions. The fellowship is not awarded directly to individual students; instead, the Mellon Foundation awards grants to the program’s member institutions, which then select fellows and administer the program on each campus.

Students must formally apply to their campus MMUF program to be considered for selection as fellows. The application process generally includes a written statement of purpose, a reflection on the ways the applicant’s life experiences and academic aspirations would contribute to furthering the goal of a diverse academy, one or more recommendations from faculty members, an academic transcript, an interview with the selection committee, and other requirements according to each institution’s procedures.

Fellows are generally chosen in the spring of their sophomore year after their majors have been declared, though there is some variation from institution to institution. In a few cases, and with prior consultation with Mellon, fellows have been selected as juniors or seniors.

MMUF is part of the Higher Learning program of the Mellon Foundation and reflects one of its three grantmaking priorities:

Elevating the knowledge that informs more complete and accurate narratives of the human experience and lays the foundation for more just and equitable futures.

Higher Learning makes grants with the objective of amplifying perspectives and contributions that have been marginalized within the conventional scholarly record, and that promote the realization of a more socially just world. We call this objective multivocality, and this commitment is at the core of MMUF.

Student applicants to MMUF will be evaluated on the basis of their prior coursework, their plans for a major, and their potential to bring historically marginalized or underrepresented perspectives to the academy, including by producing scholarly research that reflects and satisfies the above-stated goal of the Higher Learning program.

Some research themes and rubrics that may satisfy this goal include, but are not limited to, the following: historical and contemporary treatments of race, racialization, and racial formation; intersectional experience and analysis; gender and sexuality; Indigenous history and culture; questions about diaspora; coloniality and decolonization; the carceral state; migration and immigration; urban inequalities; social movements and mass mobilizations; the transatlantic slave trade; settler colonial societies; and literary accounts of agency, subjectivity, and community. While it is not required that student applicants work within the above or related rubrics, preference may be given to applicants who do.

Selection Criteria

Additional criteria are weighed in selection of participants in MMUF:

  • Academic promise (some schools have a minimum GPA cutoff, others do not);
  • Interest in pursuing graduate education, especially a PhD, in an eligible discipline of the humanities or humanistic social sciences (a list of eligible fields can be viewed below);
  • Potential for serving as a mentor and teacher for a wide variety of students;
  • Activities and leadership that reflect an interest in social justice issues and the promotion of multivocality;
  • Availability for, and commitment to, full and enthusiastic participation in all aspects of the MMUF program, including attendance at conferences and regular meetings;
  • Response to a short essay prompt about how the applicant’s life experiences and academic goals would contribute to furthering the goal of a diverse academy; and
  • Status as a US citizen or permanent resident. Students who are undocumented or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients may apply if it is consistent with their institution’s policies.

Eligible Fields of Study

To be eligible for selection as an MMUF fellow, students must be planning to study in one or more of these fields:

  • Anthropology and archaeology
  • Area/cultural/ethnic/gender studies
  • Art history
  • Classics
  • Geography and population studies
  • English
  • Film, cinema, and media studies (theoretical focus)
  • Musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory
  • Foreign languages and literatures
  • History
  • Linguistics
  • Literature
  • Performance studies (theoretical focus)
  • Philosophy and Political Theory
  • Religion and theology
  • Sociology
  • Theater (theoretical focus)
  • Interdisciplinary studies: Interdisciplinary areas of study may be eligible in they have one or more eligible fields at their core, but must be approved by the MMUF staff at the Mellon Foundation on a case-by-case basis. Please note that interdisciplinary education graduate programs, even those that incorporate one or more eligible fields, are not eligible for MMUF graduate benefits.