Mellon Foundation Grant Supports Student-Faculty Research

OBERLIN, OHIO — Oberlin College has received a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will expand student-faculty research collaborations and introduce allowances for newly tenured faculty at Oberlin College.

The grant will come in the form of $500,000 in current-use funding and an endowment of $1 million that will be matched by the College on a two-to-one basis over five years.

"This generous grant from the Mellon Foundation will fund student-faculty research and will allow us to provide new research allowances for recently tenured members of the faculty," says Jeff Witmer, acting dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "When we recruit faculty for tenure-track positions, we talk about involving students in their research and about the ways the College supports the ongoing research programs of our faculty. Thanks to the new Mellon Foundation grant, we'll be able to tell an even better story about Oberlin's financial commitment to our faculty's research agendas."

Current-use funding from the Mellon Foundation will support 10 full-time assistantships each summer and four academic-year assistantships annually while the match is being raised. The endowment will give Oberlin a permanent source of institutional support for student-faculty collaboration and provide opportunities for Oberlin undergraduates to present the results of their research at national and regional conferences.

Oberlin historically has emphasized student-faculty research. The College has 275 full-time faculty members whose research expertise ranges from African religious history to music theory to the process of transmission of West Nile Virus. Because courses at Oberlin are taught by faculty rather than graduate students, research assistantships benefit faculty while providing a mentoring opportunity for undergraduates. Many Oberlin students are also coauthors with faculty on articles published in scholarly journals.

Newly tenured faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Conservatory of Music will benefit from allowances for research and professional development. In the Conservatory, funding will allow newly tenured faculty to launch creative projects through support for travel, materials, student assistants, commissioning of new musical works, or collaboration with other artists.

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