The SSRC-Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program supports the development and training of scholars with a commitment to eradicating racial disparities on the faculties of colleges and universities.

Funded by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered through the Social Science Research Council, the Graduate Initiatives Program aims to diversify the faculties, in core fields within the arts and sciences, at colleges and universities by providing support for minority scholars and others with a demonstrated commitment to this goal. To that end, the Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program provides an annual Predoctoral Research Grant as well as an integrated cycle of program activities intended to enhance the success of Mellon Mays Fellows at key moments in their graduate and postdoctoral careers including the Annual Summer Conference, the Proposal Writing and Dissertation Development Seminar, the Seminar on Preparing for the Professoriate and the PhD Retreat.  To date there are 489 students pursuing the doctoral degree and 183 who have completed it since the inception of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF)  in 1988.  Through MMUF, fellows with demonstrated academic ability and aspiration to pursue a doctoral degree are typically selected during the sophomore year of college with recommendations from faculty, staff and administrators.  The Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program supports these scholars as they pursue graduate study.  These programs aim to reduce, over time, the serious underrepresentation on the faculties of individuals from certain minority groups, as well as to address the attendant educational consequences of these disparities.

The SSRC has found through long experience that small, targeted seminars offer a highly effective format for training and capacity building.  Building on this institutional strength, the Mellon Mays Program Seminars are designed to enhance the quality of benchmark requirements in the process of graduate training, and provide a space for fellows to strengthen their networks by becoming acquainted with the intellectual interests and research foci of their peers, working collaboratively, and facing common challenges collectively.

The PAC provides indispensable intellectual and programmatic leadership for the Social Science Research Council Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program.  It is comprised of eight Mellon Fellows, five who have completed the doctoral degree and three who are senior graduate students.  The PAC serves as the key link between Mellon Fellows and program staff, and plays a vital role in reaching out to and representing the diverse communities of the program.  The PAC is also an important mechanism in channeling the scholarly expertise and mentoring skills of the Mellon PhDs back into the Graduate Initiatives Program.