Dear University of Connecticut Community,
We are absolutely thrilled to announce The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $750,000 to fund, over the next three years, the Faculty of Color Working Group (FOCWG). This grant, sponsored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (UCHI) and in support of the New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC), aids in the stabilization and professional growth of faculty of color at predominantly white institutions in the Northeast. The Faculty of Color Working Group will focus on activities including an annual conference, a mentorship program that draws on a national network of leaders, and a fellowship program for faculty of color in partnership with NEHC institutions. We are equally thrilled to announce that this UConn-based initiative benefits from the generosity and prescience of the offices of CLAS Dean Juli Wade, Provost Carl Lejuez, and the Vice-Provost for Research (OVPR) Radenka Maric, who have provided generous additional funding to advance FOCWG regionally.
Given our current context, these funds are a timely, tangible response to spark academic climate change, which in truth depends so heavily on concrete support for and the leadership provided by non-white faculty. This funding signals the belief that scrutiny of working environments among faculty of color and institutional growth and innovation are both intimately linked and long overdue. The grant underscores the simultaneous precarity of faculty of color and the pre-condition of their professional empowerment for any holistic institutional growth and innovation. It is our goal to use the Mellon Foundation award and UConn funds to help faculty of color with their professional advancement despite structural imbalances and to urge their respective institutional administrations to be self-affirming, by continuously choosing to support their non-white faculty. Doing so strengthens institutions exponentially in positive directions now and into our foreseeable futures.
We are excited to have been able to see this grant into action and will use this opportunity to fight for racial justice here at UConn, regionally, and nationally. The work continues.
UConn Today Article: https://today.uconn.edu/2020/07/750000-mellon-foundation-grant-expand-ne-humanities-consortium-faculty-color-working-group/
Cheers,
Melina Pappademos, Michael P. Lynch, Yohei Igarashi, and Alexis L. Boylan
Melina Pappademos, Ph.D., Director, Africana Studies Institute, Director, Faculty of Color Working Group, Associate Professor, Department of History;
Michael Patrick Lynch, Board of Trustees Distinguished, Professor, Philosophy, Director, Humanities Institute;
Yohei Igarashi, Associate Professor of English, Acting Director of Academic Affairs, Humanities Institute;
Alexis L. Boylan, Acting Director, UConn Humanities Institute, Acting Director, New England Humanities Consortium, Associate Professor, Art + Art History Department and Africana Studies Institute
For more information, contact: UCHI at uchi@ucon.edu