Our Program

The shortage of minority scholars on college and university campuses across the country has prompted increasing concern nationwide. To address this issue, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation established the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program(www.mmuf.org).

Since 1993, the Washington University MMUF has been celebrating the life of the mind with research-oriented endeavors for students in the humanities and social sciences.  The program encourages talented students to develop their academic interests to the fullest, obtain PhD degrees, and pursue careers in higher education.  Washington University joins 34 other colleges and universities, plus the 38 member institutions of the United Negro College Fund, in participating in this effort.

The Seminar

As participants in this two-year program, Fellows take part in a weekly three-credit seminar coordinated by Professor Joseph Thompson.  These meetings focus on topics central to the liberal arts, what it means to be an academic, and the research and writing process.  Other program activities include an extended program orientation, compiling the student research journal The Inquiry, writing an annual newsletter, inviting speakers, and attending a bi-yearly regional conference.  Fellows also work with younger students of the Washington University community, and maintain a working relationship with their faculty mentors.

Mentoring Relationships

The mentoring role is essential to the legacy of the Mellon Mays Program.  Named after Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, himself a great "spiritual mentor" to the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Julian Bond, and Andrew Young, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program seeks to actively engage its mentors and students in a successful research partnership.  This is both to introduce the student to the process of research, and the moment of intellectual self-discovery.

Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays was an active opponent of segregation and an advocate of education. After attending the University of Chicago for his master’s degree and doctorate, he served as dean of the Howard University School of Religion and as president of Morehouse College. He was also the first black president of the Atlanta school board.

To provide greater awareness of what it means to be an academic, each Mellon Fellow works closely during the academic year with a faculty mentor. The student and mentor work together to plan a mutually agreeable research project.

Each Fellow participates in summer research tailored to the individual student, in consultation with the faculty mentor, and reports monthly to the Faculty Coordinator and mentor.

During the course of the academic research year and the summer, mentors and Fellows communicate regularly to discuss research progress, challenges, and ideas. This is a time for the Fellow to learn from their faculty mentor, get advice, and evaluate their own progress.

Becoming a Fellow

In order to join the program, sophomore applicants submit a written application on the last Friday in February. Subsequently, there are interviews, and students are contacted by mid-March of their status.  Beginning in March, the new cohort of Fellows attends a weekly orientation seminar in order to begin drafting their summer research objectives.  Though the process is competitive, students are encouraged not to self-select themselves out of the running. 

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF) at Washington University is for students interested in pursuing graduate work in Anthropology, Area Studies, Art History, Classics, Computer Science, Demography, Earth Science, Ecology, English, Ethnomusicology, Foreign Languages, Geology, History, Literature, Mathematics, Musicology, Philosophy, Physics, Political Theory, Religion, and Sociology. If you do not see your field on the list, please contact Dean Mary Laurita at mlaurita@wustl.edu.

Program Coordinators

Dr. Gerald Early (Program Director), Dean Mary Laurita (Administrative Coordinator), and Dr. Joseph Thompson (Faculty Coordinator) work closely to ensure the success of the program. Stephanie Vossen is the Administrative Assistant for the program, and Marquita James and Valerie Wade are the 2007-2008 Mellon Interns.

Valerie Wade: "Building Their Own Pulpits: Women and Black Spiritualist Churches."

Valerie hails from Nacogdoches, TX. She is a senior double-majoring in African and African American Studies and Psychology. Her project will examine the roles that black women play in American Spiritualist churches, how these churches influence their communities, the various philosophies that these churches teach, and the similarities and differences between these churches and more mainstream religious organizations. She hopes that her project will shed light on the diverse religious experiences of black American women and black Americans in general.

Mentor: Dr. Margaret Garb (History)

Class of 2009 Fellows

Mimi Li: "Packaging Men: Selling the Gay Male Body."

Mimi, a junior majoring in French from Seattle, WA, is interested in examining the idea of the gay male body as a commodity in contemporary visual culture. As gay men have become assimilated into mainstream culture and even anointed as arbiters of taste, the gay aesthetic has become the standard to which (gay) male bodies are compared. She would like to explore how men are packaged in contemporary visual culture n order to conform to the reigning aesthetic, which effectively converts male bodies into products to be "sold" to an audience.

Mentor: Dr. Jami Ake (Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities)

Kim Short: "Representations of African American Women in Television"

Kimberly Short is a junior majoring in English Literature. Her research focuses on African American females and their perceptions of other African American females in television sitcoms. She hopes to further understand the inner workings of representation of African American females in media by addressing the television viewers themselves.

Mentor: Philip Sewell (Film and Media Studies

Ashley Williams: "The Genocide in Darfur"

Ashley is a junior History major and Writing minor from Burtonsville, Maryland. She is interested in the shifting names attributed to the conflict in Sudan. She believes that the deaths in Sudan are not simply “war casualties,” as the Government of Sudan frames it. However, is it, as the United Nations describes, a “humanitarian crisis” with a few specific individual intentions of genocide? Or, as the United States declared, an instance of genocide? Her project will explore the terminology surrounding the conflict in Sudan, in terms of its meaning and significance.

Mentor: Dr. Hillel Kieval (History)

Bobbie Bigby "Ethnic Tourism, Ritual Performances, and Conceptions of Authenticity Among Dharamsala Tibetans and Lijiang Naxis."

Bobbie is currently a junior majoring in Anthropology and Chinese. Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Bobbie's passion for studying different ethnic populations first began in her multicultural hometown. In her spare time, Bobbie enjoys cooking, reading, studying foreign languages, and dancing. Her Mellon Mays project revolves around the recent boom in ethnic tourism in Southwestern China, its impact on the indigenous religious rituals, and native conceptions of authenticity. The study will combine first-hand ethnographic data of Kham Tibetan and Lijiang Naxi communities in Northwestern Yunnan province, China (to be carried out in the summer of 2008) with anthropological and historical writings on the region, ethnic groups, and spiritual traditions.

Mentor: Dr. Geoff Childs (Anthropology)