The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) is a 2-year program at CSUSB that provides financial support, research mentorship, and assistance with graduate school applications.
Established in the 1988/1989 academic year, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) is committed to broadening the range of scholarly perspectives in the US academy, with a focus on the humanities and the humanistic social sciences. Its name honors Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, the noted African American educator, statesman, minister, former president of Morehouse College, and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Founded with an initial cohort of eight member institutions, the program has grown to include 47 programs, including three consortia.
To date, the program has produced more than 1,200 PhDs, more than 800 of whom are currently college professors. Numerous others have taken their valuable humanities training into venues ranging from museums and nonprofit organizations to publishing houses and government positions. At any given time, about 800 MMUF fellows are enrolled in PhD programs, while the fellowship supports approximately 500 undergraduate students each year.
Through activities that emphasize mentoring, research support, and student-cohort building, MMUF programs identify and support students of great promise and help them become scholars and professionals of the highest distinction.
MMUF is proud of its legacy of leading scholars whose perspectives greatly enrich research and teaching in their fields.
The MMUF program is designed to encourage fellows to enter PhD programs that prepare students for professorial careers; it is not intended to support students who intend to go on to medical school, law school or other professional schools.
Keep in mind that the program is designed for students who intend to pursue (or are strongly considering) graduate study in one of the areas of study listed below:
- Anthropology & Archaeology
- Area/Cultural/Ethnic/Gender Studies
- Art History
- Classics
- Geography & Population Studies
- English
- Film, Cinema & Media Studies (theoretical focus)
- Musicology & Ethnomusicology
- Foreign Languages & Literatures
- History
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Performance Studies (theoretical focus)
- Philosophy & Political Theory
- Religion & Theology
- Sociology
- Theater (theoretical focus)