Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award Grant

Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Institute for Citizens & Scholars
Amount: US $20,000
Last Updated: October 22, 2025

Summary

The Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award supports early-career faculty committed to building inclusive campus communities. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, it offers a $20,000 stipend to assist with summer research and academic year support. Eligible candidates are assistant professors in tenure-track positions who have passed their third-year review and are engaged in fostering diversity and inclusion in their academic fields. This fellowship not only aids their research but also emphasizes their role in mentoring underrepresented students.

Overview

Fellowships for Faculty Citizens & Scholars offers three Fellowships for Faculty at the college or university level. Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award Leading on Campus Through Excellence and Inclusion The Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders (MEFL) are building inclusive campus communities through their teaching, scholarship, and service. Awardees are early-career faculty whose research focuses on contemporary American history, politics, culture, and society. In addition to bringing a diversity of perspectives to their fields, MEFL awardees are building support systems, networks, and affinity groups for their students and peers. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the MEFL award provides a $20,000 stipend—$12,000 to be used for summer research support and $8,000 for research assistance during the academic year. The Challenge: The junior faculty best positioned to help create more inclusive academic communities for the next generation are often the most overburdenedThe Fellows: 76 faculty from seven cohorts have received support, with a tenure rate of 80+% among those eligible to dateThe Impact: Junior faculty committed to inclusion on campus gain resources to balance their research, leadership, and mentoring responsibilities while working toward tenure Accelerating Scholarship and Inclusivity C&S Fellows from the Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders program are deeply committed to their teaching, scholarship, and service. These Fellows are working on campuses across the country to build support systems, networks, and affinity groups for their students and peers. Reshaping Higher Education Established in 2015 as the Malkiel Scholars Award, the program was extended and renamed in late 2019. The more than 60 faculty members awarded this honor represent the next generation of leaders and scholars in the humanities and social sciences, poised to play a significant role in shaping American higher education.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Applicants eligible for the Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award will be assistant professors in tenure-track appointments who are pursuing tenure. They will have successfully passed the standard third-year/midpoint review or their institution’s equivalent no later than the specified date. Eligible applicants are typically in the fourth or fifth year of the tenure-track appointment and are still working to complete key items for the tenure dossier, which should not be scheduled for submission prior to the end of the award year. Please note that the award seeks to support progress toward tenure for scholars who are also meaningfully engaged in building campus community.Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States as of the specified date (please include a copy of your green card with your application supplemental items if a permanent resident).Fields Supported:Emerging Faculty Leaders may be working in any field of the humanities or social sciences—including, for example, history, sociology, anthropology, literature, art, gender studies, ethnic/diaspora studies, and related fields—with an emphasis on scholarly topics that relate to or provide context for the study of culture, equity, inclusion, civil rights, and education in the Americas. Examples might include (but are certainly not limited to) changing perspectives on civil rights; legal, social, and organizational responses to social change (such as affirmative action or community organizing); women in leadership; intersectionality within larger social movements; social justice issues in education; historic precursors of contemporary constructions of race and ethnicity; and the evolution of social institutions and movements in the 20th and 21st century.The Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award will recognize junior faculty candidates who not only balance research, teaching, and service but in fact give great weight to the creation of an inclusive campus community for underrepresented students and scholars. The selectors will focus on and privilege service and leadership activities that address and ameliorate underrepresentation on campus, and give preference to candidates who embody a high standard of excellence.

Ineligibility

Applicants who are already effectively in a position to go up for tenure—for instance, those who have already submitted the dossier and/or who would be considered for tenure during the award year—will be ineligible.Candidates who have received the Career Enhancement Fellowship are not eligible to apply to the MEFL program.