Mellon Foundation gifts $15 million grant to UC’s promoting faculty diversity

 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Mellon Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. Since 2018 the Mellon Foundation has supported our (AMIGA) project which establishes holistic review methods with two UC campuses UC Davis, UCLA) and USC. This new 15 million dollar grant will support the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) in expanding the number of PPFP fellowships at UC and establish a program for hiring faculty whose research and teaching emphasizes diversity and equity in the humanities at the University’s five federally recognized Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI). These include UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz. Mellon’s significant gift will create the PPFP/Mellon Foundation UC-HSI Initiative for Humanities and help facilitate UC’s comprehensive efforts to assist young scholars whose research, teaching and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity at UC.