|
|
"We’re very, very pleased we can go forward," Brown said.
The Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is housed at the university’s Center for the Americas, which brings together faculty in American Studies and Latin American Studies in a comparative, hemispheric approach to the study of the Americas, according to officials.
"It’s a great program and a great Center," Brown said.
Since 1998, the Mellon Foundation has supported postdoctoral fellows at the Center with two grants, officials said.
"It started as a seed grant," Brown said.
"This has been a cooperative effort over the years with the faculty of the American Studies and Latin American Studies and former Center director Patricia Hill," said Center Director Ann Wightman, who is a history professor.
Wightman said the faculty is "excited" about the possibility to continue to serve the community with undergraduate courses in the fields of American Studies.
The new grant will enable the university to create an endowment to make the program a permanent part of the undergraduate curriculum, officials said. Faculty in the Center for the Americas will search for its next cohort of Mellon Fellows in fields such as Native American Studies.
Other areas besides Native American Studies are culture production in the Caribbean and Latin American religion, Wightman said. Among others are Jamaican political culture and a course on the indigenous people of the Southwest and Northwest.
Wightman said students are interested in the undergraduate areas of American Studies and Latin American Studies, adding there are currently 150 students majoring in the fields.
"It meets the needs in the curriculum and the students’ interests," she said.
Mellon Fellows at the Center for the Americas are appointed in cohorts of two. The initial appointment is for one year and is renewable for a second year, officials said. Mellon Fellows teach one course per semester and have the opportunity to teach courses that are diverse in content and format. During the first year, each Fellow teaches a small, research-related seminar and a larger lecture course that offers students a broader understanding of the field. In the second year, each Fellow offers a course in his or her area of expertise; together they will design and team-teach a course with a comparative perspective.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provides grants in higher education, museums and art conservation, performing arts, conservation and the environment, and public affairs, according to the foundation’s Web site. Within each of its programs, the foundation directs most of its grantmaking to a few areas of emphasis, in order to focus on a limited number of important objectives.
Institutions and programs receiving support are often leaders in fields of Foundation activity, but may also be promising newcomers, or in a position to demonstrate new ways of overcoming obstacles to achieving program and grantee goals, according to the Web site. The foundation seeks to strengthen institutions and their capacities rather than encourage them to take on ancillary activities, and it seeks to stay with programs long enough to achieve meaningful results.
University officials will make plans to go out in the fall to begin fund-raising to match the grant, Brown said.
"We’ve been successful before," she said. "I expect we’ll be able to fund the matches."
To contact Amy L. Zitka, call (860)347-3331 ext. 211 or email azitka@middletownpress.com.
