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The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program

Application Deadline: Friday, February 1, 2013 (4:00 p.m.)

Application Available at the Yale College Dean's Office, 110 SSS or in PDF format from this Web site:

Yale College is pleased to announce the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program—named after Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, educator, college president, and civil rights activist and underwritten by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This competitive program is designed to increase the number of minority students and others with a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities, who will purse PhDs and subsequent careers in academia in selected core fields in the Arts and Sciences. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens.

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program is an effort to increase the pool of young people qualified to meet the needs of educational institutions into the next century. As stated by the Mellon Foundation, "The program aims to reduce over time the serious under-representation of individuals from certain minority groups at the faculty level, as well as to address the attendant educational consequences of these disparities. The program serves the related goals of structuring campus environments so that they will become more conducive to improved racial and ethnic relations, and of providing role models for all youth." The Fellowship allows students to work on paid research projects during the academic year, and to pursue full-time research during the summers between sophomore and junior years, and between junior and senior years. The program also allows students to decrease their undergraduate and graduate educational loan obligations.

Eligible Fields of Study

The Mellon Program is limited to the following fields of study:

  • Anthropology and Archaeology
  • Area/Cultural/Ethnic/Gender Studies
  • Art History
  • Classics
  • Computer Science
  • Geography and Population Studies
  • Earth/Environmental/Geological Science and Ecology
  • English
  • Film, Cinema and Media Studies (theoretical focus)
  • Musicology and Ethnomusicology
  • Foreign Languages and Literatures
  • History
  • Linguistics
  • Literature       
  • Mathematics
  • Oceanographic/Marine/Atmospheric/Planetary Science
  • Performance Studies (theoretical focus)
  • Philosophy and Political Theory
  • Physics and Astronomy
  • Religion and Theology
  • Sociology
  • Theater (non-performance focus)
  • Interdisciplinary Studies: Interdisciplinary areas of study may be eligible if they have one or more Mellon fields at their core; MMUF program coordinators should please consult with Mellon Foundation program staff before selecting students in such areas to participate in MMUF.

Information Session and Selection Procedures

Information Session will be held on Tuesday, November 13rd, 2012, 5-6:30 p.m. at SSS 410. Dinner will be served.

Application Requirements

The following documents must be received by the Friday, February 1, 2013 (4:00 p.m.) deadline:

  • A short application, which includes two essays
  • Two letters of recommendation, one of which should be from a classroom instructor at Yale College
  • Writing Sample (limit 10 pp. Sample not restricted to your current or intended major/area of interest. This should be a piece of writing that you are proud of.)
  • An unofficial copy of applicant's Yale College transcript
  • A completed Faculty Mentor Assignment Form.

Contact Information

Dean Saveena Dhall
Director, Mellon Mays and Bouchet Undergraduate Fellowship Programs
SSS, 1 Prospect St., #110
saveena.dhall@yale.edu
203-432-2900

Jennifer Lambe
Coordinator, Mellon Mays and Bouchet Undergraduate Fellowship Program
jennifer.lambe@yale.edu

Sharleen Sánchez Barriera
Program Assistant, Mellon Mays and Bouchet Undergraduate Fellowship Program
55 Whitney Ave, STE 630
sharleen.sanchez@yale.edu
203-432-7664