The MMUF Chronicle Volume 1, Issue 2

The MMUF Chronicle

December 10, 2006

"Once A Mellon Fellow, Always A Mellon Fellow"

Volume 1, Issue 2

MMUF at Glance

200 PhDs
508 fellows enrolled in graduate school
150 fellows at the ABD level
31 PhDs are teaching at MMUF schools
15 Tenured faculty

The MMUF Survey is new and improved! Mellon Fellows,
please log on to www.mmuf.org/survey to fill out your Annual Update for 2006!

This spring City College will host the New York City Regional MMUF Conference. Other participating institutions include: Barnard College, Columbia University, Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and Queens College.

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Journal

Call for Papers

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal is an annual collection of scholarly works by participants in the program. Submissions are now being accepted for the next edition of the journal, which will be distributed nationally in 2008.

Questions? Contact

Meg Brooks Swift
8 Garden Street,
Byerly Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-496-3190

Suggestions?
The second issue of the MMUF Chronicle is scheduled for release in the spring of 2007. Please contact
with suggestions for next
issue.

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
140 East 62^nd Street
New York, NY 10021
Phone: 212-838-8400
Fax: 212-223-2778

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http://www.mmuf.org

Claflin University President Henry Tisdale names Mellon Fellow as Director of New Center

Brian Johnson, UNCF/Mellon Fellow from Johnson C. Smith University, was named Director of Claflin University’s Jonathan Jasper Wright Institute for the Study of Southern African American History, Culture and Policy.

Brian is an Associate Professor of English at Claflin University. He earned his Ph.D. in English from The University of South Carolina, Columbia (2003). In addition to being appointed the Director of the Institute, Brian was also awarded the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Junior Faculty Career Enhancement Fellowship (2006-2007).

Brian’s appointment to the Wright Institute marks the achievement of a very personal endeavor to combine scholarship with community development and outreach, an idea that he began to explore with other Mellon Fellows at the SSRC Graduate Student Conference. “During every graduate conference,” he says, “we would have many discussions about how this is what we would like to see Mellon fellows become: a cohesive, vibrant and organic intellectual body.”

Recently, Brian was joined at Claflin by Mellon Fellow Adam Biggs. Adam, who completed his undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University studying the history of American Civilization and is now a Wright Institute fellow.

The Institute will be a major resource for policy development on issues relating to Southern African-Americans. This spring the Institute will hold a one-day symposium entitled “New Directions in African American Scholarship in the 21st Century.”

President Tisdale sees the Wright Institute as one strategy for attracting talented junior scholars. Wright Institute fellows will have reduced teaching responsibilities, which will give them the time needed to conduct research and publish their work.

In addition to serving the African-American community by providing a voice for public policy affecting this community, the Wright Institute will send a signal to the larger academic community that outstanding scholarship can also be found at a small, historically black campus.

[Jonathan Jasper Wright was the first African-American to be appointed to the South Carolina state Supreme Court, the first to be elected to any appellate court in the nation. He was also a vital leader in the black community during the post-Civil War era.]

University of Cape Town Mellon Fellows are Awarded the Mandela-Rhodes Scholarship

Two of the eight South African students chosen for the 2006 Mandela-Rhodes Scholarship are University of Cape Town Mellon Fellows Rumbi Goredema and Marlon Burgess.

Rumbi is grateful to the MMUF program and the UCT Coordinators, Kathy Erasmus and Gideon Nomdo, for making the award a possibility for her. “Kathy encouraged us to apply. Her assistance, and Gideon’s, was invaluable in the application process.”

Rumbi sees the Mandela-Rhodes Scholarship award as an incredible opportunity to further her development as a scholar. “I cannot wait to build upon what I learned in Atlanta at the MMUF/UNCF Summer Institute through the mentorship and leadership training that Mandela-Rhodes will afford me.”

“Our scholars continue to validate the work we do,” says MMUF Program Director Dr. Lydia English. “We are extremely proud of the heights towards which Kathy and Gideon are striving.”

The California Institute of Technology Hosts this Year’s MMUF West Coast Regional Conference

by Elizabeth Foley

On November 17th and 18th, MMUF coordinators and fellows from the California Institute of Technology, Heritage University, the University of Southern California and Stanford University came together at Caltech for the 2007 MMUF West Coast Regional Mini-Conference.

Each undergraduate fellow who attended had an opportunity to present his or her latest research and respond to questions, but conference activities also moved beyond the purely academic into the larger world—from a tour of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Lab, where cutting-edge research is done for NASA’s missions, to a discussion by authors Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor of their recent book Einstein on Race and Racism, to a visit to San Marino’s Huntington Library, a world-renowned research facility that includes extensive archives, a major art gallery, and beautiful gardens.

The conference provided a vivid sense of the wealth of resources our West Coast institutions have to offer—the most important of which is their people, from fellows to campus coordinators to librarians and archivists. MMUF thanks all of those who attended, and congratulates Caltech on marking its 10th anniversary as a member of the MMUF program. We hope to see you all again at next year’s conference!

Mellon Fellow of the Semester

For anyone familiar with the outstanding academic work of Chika Okoye, now a senior at Hunter College, it is difficult to imagine that she ever struggled in school. “I was born in Brockport, New York,” she says, “a small university town. The small suburb and its school system were a poor fit for me, and I didn’t manage to complete high school.” Instead, Chika received her GED and made her way to New York City where she has excelled as a student at Hunter College ever since.

This fall Chika Okoye was selected as The Mellon Fellow of the Semester for exemplifying academic excellence. She is studying classics, a subject that she developed a passion for after her first course in Greek and Roman tragedy.

In addition to traveling extensively through study abroad programs and overseas internships, Chika has recently concluded a research project on slavery in ancient Egypt as part of her fellowship requirement, which she describes as eye-opening and intellectually rewarding. “I could not have completed the work without my mentor, Professor Tamara Green,” she says. “Talking with her has given me a sense that I can contribute to the world of scholarship.”

Most importantly, Chika demonstrates a sincere passion for learning, which she hopes to share with her own students one day. “I want to keep an open mind and develop my intellect, but I also want to share with others the meaningful truths embedded within ancient texts.”