About MMUF


The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was established as a nonprofit philanthropic organization in June of 1969 with a mission to "aid and promote such religious, charitable, scientific, literary, and educational purposes as may be in the furtherance of the public welfare or tend to promote the well-doing or well-being of mankind." In 1988, under this broad charter, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation made a long-term commitment to help remedy the serious shortage of faculty of color in higher education through the Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) program under the leadership of then President William G. Bowen and Founding Director of the MMUF program, Henry N. Drewery.


In 2003, the Foundation reaffirmed its commitment and broadened the mission of MMUF. The name of the program was changed to the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program, to symbolically connect the mission to the stellar educational achievements of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays. With eight member schools and 40 students in the first cohort, the Mellon family has grown into a community of scholars in 2008 to include 38 direct-grant institutions and the 39 member institutions of the United Negro College Fund consortium. Today over twenty-nine hundred students have been selected as Mellon fellows, 542 of whom are currently pursuing PhDs and 247 have earned their doctoral degree. Twenty-four of these outstanding young scholars have already earned tenure.

Did You Know ...?


As of 2008, there are nearly 3000 MMUF selected students, more than 200 received their PhDs, and 542 are in the process of earning their PhDs.

 


Participating MMUF Institutions

Barnard College
Bowdoin College
Brooklyn College/CUNY
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
California Institute of Technology
Carleton College
City College of New York/CUNY
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Emory University
Harvard University
Haverford College
Heritage University
Hunter College/CUNY
Macalester College
Oberlin College
Princeton University
Queens College/CUNY
Rice University
Smith College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
University of Cape Town, South Africa
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
University of Southern California
University of the Witwaterstrand, South Africa
Washington University in St. Louis
Wellesley College
Williams College
Yale University

United Negro College Fund Member Institutions (1989)
Allen University
Benedict College
Bennett College
Bethane-Cookman University
Claflin University
Clark Atlanta University
Dillard University
Edward Waters College
Fisk University
Florida Memorial University
Huston-Tillotson University
Interdenominational Theological Center
Jarvis Christian College
Johnson C. Smith University
Lane College
LeMoyne-Owen College
Livingstone College
Miles College
Morehouse College
Morris College
Oakwood College
Paine College
Paul Quinn College
Philander Smith College
Rust College
Saint Augustine’s College
Saint Paul’s College
Shaw University
Spelman College
Stillman College
Talladega College
Texas College
Tougaloo College
Tuskegee University
Virginia Union University
Voorhees College
Wilberforce University
Wiley College
Xavier University

Newly-inducted MMUF Institutions
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles
Northwestern University