Schomburg-Mellon Fellowship for Undergraduates

Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute
June 16-July 25, 2008

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation have created the Mellon-Schomburg Humanities Summer Institute to
encourage minority students and others with an interest in African-American
and African Diaspora Studies to pursue graduate degrees in the humanities.
The program, open to U.S. citizens and Permanent Residents, offers a
six-week session for ten rising seniors (juniors in 2008, graduating in
2009). Five will be selected from New York City and five from Historically
Black Colleges and Universities across the nation. The Institute, with the
help of renowned scholars, will develop and nurture the students' interest
in the appropriate disciplines, and provide them with the requisite basic
intellectual challenges and orientations needed to pursue humanities careers
and to reach their full potential.

Program Details

- Divided into morning and afternoon sessions, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
- Seminars by distinguished scholars in a humanities field
- Independent research and group interaction
- Assigned readings from scholarly texts
- Viewings and discussions of relevant documentaries under the guidance of two
graduate mentors Development of a research prospectus
- Content development for a Web site
- Signed certificate by Schomburg Center Director Howard Dodson and Institute
Director Sylviane A. Diouf upon completion of the program citing them as
Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Scholars.

Each participant will receive a $2,000 stipend* for the six-week session. In
addition, the program will cover the travel expenses of students from out of
state and all students -including those residing in New York City-will be
lodged, free of charge, in the vicinity of the Schomburg Center. Two
graduate students will serve as on-site residence counselors.

*For more information, see
http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/humanities/index.html