An open house to learn more about the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship will be held on Thursday, March 15, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Santos Manuel Student Union Events Center A. RSVP to MMUF@csusb.edu.

For the first time ever, a four-year, five-campus consortium grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will be given to local California State Universities to establish the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) program, with Cal State San Bernardino as one of the participating campuses.

The other universities in this unique consortium include Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Los Angeles, with the CSU Foundation as the primary grantee. The total funding is $2,211,000. CSUSB will receive $425,814 to support the program.

“The powerful partnership among these five extraordinary CSU campuses and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will have a lasting, positive impact for numerous students and their futures,” said Shari G. McMahan, provost of CSUSB and vice president for academic affairs. “This will help many of our promising underrepresented students in the humanities to reach their highest educational and career goals.”

The MMUF grant was implemented to increase academic opportunities and provide financial support to underrepresented students, most of which are low-income and first-generation, who will pursue a doctorate in the humanities after completing their studies at CSUSB. The main objective is to address, over time, the problem of underrepresentation in college and university faculties.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation made a long-term commitment in 1988 to help remedy the shortage of faculty of color in higher education through the MMUF program. “The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program is the centerpiece of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s initiatives to increase diversity in the faculty ranks of institutions of higher learning,” the MMUF website reads.

“As a Hispanic-Serving Institution, CSUSB seamlessly lines up with the goals of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program,” said CSUSB President Tomás D. Morales. “We deeply value the diversity of our campus community and are pleased to continue to support such diversity.”

Students in the MMUF program at CSUSB will develop their research and other transferable skills, improve their understanding of what it means to be a faculty member, and prepare for the transition into a graduate program. They will be given the opportunity to enhance their knowledge and skills through various workshops, structured programming, faculty and peer mentoring, financial support, peer interactions, academic presentations, symposia and social events.

Appointed by Provost McMahan, the MMUF program at CSUSB will be led by Dorota Huizinga, associate provost for the Office of Academic Research and dean of graduate studies; Francisca Beer, professor of accounting and finance and associate dean of the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration MBA program; and Ryan Keating, associate professor of history.

To learn more about The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program, visit its website at mmuf.org.

For more information about The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, visit mellon.org.