NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science is part of a $5.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation aimed at increasing the number of Latino professors in the humanities at American colleges and universities.
New York University’s Graduate School of Arts and Science is part of a $5.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation aimed at increasing the number of Latino professors in the humanities at American colleges and universities.
The award will support Pathways to the Professoriate, a program run by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). It seeks to prepare 90 students from Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) for Ph.D. programs over a five-year period.
“As the demographic profile of the U.S. changes, the country has a compelling interest in obtaining the full participation of previously underrepresented communities,” said Mariët Westermann, vice president at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. “The past decade has seen considerable gains in doctoral degree attainment for Latinos, yet these gains have not kept up with the growth of the U.S. Hispanic population. We have every confidence that this program will build on the successful pipeline programs piloted by the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS) will partner with the Penn center to prepare Latino/a undergraduates to apply to and succeed in humanities Ph.D. programs. GSAS’s role will be two-fold.
During the earlier part of this grant's five-year life span, NYU and other research universities will work with Penn and HSIs to develop a curriculum and strategies so that selected undergraduates can have a support system in place when applying to graduate school. It will be designed to prepare students for the application process and introduce them to life as a graduate student.
In later years, students who are admitted to NYU will receive further individualized mentorship, with the aim of ensuring a positive experience while helping students cope with some of the challenges they may face in graduate school.
“Because they have gone through the Pathways they will have an extra support network that's already in place before their arrival at NYU,” explains Aida Gureghian, assistant director of Student Affairs at GSAS.
During the five-year program, the Center for MSIs will partner with three HSIs — Florida International University; the University of Texas El Paso; and California State University, Northridge — and five research institutions —NYU; the University of California, Berkley; the University of Pennsylvania; Northwestern University; and the University of California, Davis.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Founded in 1831, NYU is one of the world’s foremost research universities and is a member of the selective Association of American Universities. NYU has degree-granting campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai, and has eleven other global academic sites around the world. Through its numerous schools and colleges, NYU conducts research and provides education in the arts and sciences, law, medicine, business, dentistry, education, nursing, the cinematic and performing arts, music and studio arts, public administration, engineering, social work, cities, global public health, big data, and continuing and professional studies, among other areas.
About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Founded in 1969, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work. For more information, please visit https://mellon.org.