Event Date
Visit the Mellon Public Scholars website for full details on the 2022 call for proposals, including descriptions of pre-established projects with community partners, eligibility, application process, evaluation criteria, and submission details. Contact Mellon Public Scholars Program Manager, Stephanie Maroney (srmaroney@ucdavis.edu) with any questions.
The UC Davis Humanities Institute invites applications from doctoral and MFA students in the arts, humanities, and humanistic social sciences to join the 2022 cohort of Mellon Public Scholars. The program introduces graduate students to the intellectual and practical aspects of identifying, addressing, and collaborating with members of a public through their scholarship. Ten successful graduate student applicants will participate in a quarter-long, two-credit seminar in spring 2022. Each student will work with a faculty partner to develop a community-based research project and receive a $7,500 stipend (with the possibility of supplemental project funds) to support the project over summer 2022.
Because this program is intended to acknowledge and draw on the community-engaged scholarship of our faculty, faculty mentorship is an integral part of the summer projects. The program encourages students to consider faculty mentors outside of their department as a way to broaden their interdisciplinary network. However, applicants do not need to have a faculty member identified at the time of application. The role of the faculty mentor includes: offering guidance as the student develops the community project, helping the student to develop individual goals for their project so that the experience can be integrated into their graduate training, and debriefing on outcomes of the project upon completion. Each faculty will receive a $2,000 award (i.e., as summer salary).
The Mellon Public Scholars Program invites applications that address the university’s commitment to diversity. This may include: public service towards increasing equitable access in fields where women and minorities are underrepresented; research focusing on underserved populations or understanding inequalities related to race, gender, disability or LGBTQI issues; and applicants who offer perspectives of groups historically underrepresented in higher education.
Pre-established and/or Original Projects
Applicants may choose to propose an original project (of their own) or be considered for a pre-established project with a community partner (TBA). Students may apply to either and/or both of these tracks. If applying to both, please submit a separate application for each. We ask that, if a student chooses to apply for an established project, they only apply for the one that best fits their interests and background. Please contact the program manager (srmaroney@ucdavis.edu) with questions rather than the host organizations directly.
Eligibility
We welcome doctoral and MFA students in the arts, humanities, and humanistic social sciences at any stage in their graduate training. Among the criteria for selection is the proposed project’s relevance to the humanities and arts, areas of particular interest to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Anyone with an interest in public scholarship and community-engaged research is encouraged to apply, whether or not that interest is explicit in their dissertation research.