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Mellon Graduate Workshops
Brown’s Mellon graduate workshops were established by a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation in 2003 and renewed in 2008. The Mellon Graduate Workshops support graduate students in the humanities and humanistically oriented social sciences who are in the process of shaping and writing their dissertations by providing opportunities for formal collaboration and intellectual exchange. Workshops organized by graduate students run throughout the academic year and are administered by the Graduate School. Workshops focus on an intellectual problem or topic, provide a forum for discussions of dissertation work by students, and offer resources for at least three visiting scholars to attend and to present and discuss their work. Young scholars who are developing their methods and focusing their objects of inquiry can benefit from a wider conversation with scholars both at Brown and elsewhere who are engaging similar issues or problems, sometimes from different disciplinary perspectives. Workshops enrich the scholarship of graduate students as they present their work beyond their departments, as they form valuable connections with faculty and peers from other disciplines, and as they engage with the research and perspectives of visiting scholars. Graduate workshops energize graduate students in writing their dissertations and help them to sustain the intellectual connections they have made in earlier coursework. Further, they foster the exploration of common research agendas in the humanities and social sciences at Brown. The Graduate School organizes and administers five Mellon Graduate Workshops each year. Advanced graduate students and faculty members in each workshop will meet at least ten times each academic year to present work in progress and explore areas of common intellectual interest. The workshop’s goal is to encourage advanced graduate students by providing an audience and interlocutors for their work and to encourage interdisciplinary inquiry as they write their dissertations. Criteria for successful proposals will include: • Strong conceptualization of the topic • A likelihood of attracting students to the workshop Workshops are eligible for renewal in succeeding years on the basis of a review of written evaluations and of their ability to continue to draw participants, to elicit dissertation progress, and where appropriate, to stimulate multidisciplinary research. Workshop Coordinators Each workshop is coordinated by one graduate student. The student coordinator organizes meetings, hosts speakers, and sees to the overall administration of the workshop. The student coordinator receives a $2,000 stipend supplement. Brown conceives of the workshops not only as a way to augment graduate training, but also as part of the academic enrichment initiatives to enhance graduate education and research. The workshop program is administered by the Graduate School, in conjunction with the Mellon faculty and student coordinators. Administrative support is provided by Nancy Picard in the Office of the Dean of the Graduate School. Applications Mellon Graduate Workshops focus on intellectual problems or topics of interest to students writing their dissertations. Multidisciplinary initiatives are encouraged as well as disciplinary based seminars. Applications must be completed by an eligible graduate student. Applications should be sent to the Faculty Coordinator of the Mellon Graduate Workshops, c/o Nancy Picard at the Graduate School (Box 1867). They can also be emailed to Nancy_Picard@brown.edu; please include Mellon Workshops Application in the subject line. Applications can be in Word or pdf format. The core components are: • Workshop title • A short (i.e., 100 word) summary of the intellectual focus of the workshop • A longer description of the workshop’s intellectual focus and inter-disciplinary dimensions (1000 words) • A preliminary workshop bibliography of core works—either as stand-alone document or appended to the description. • A list of projected attendees • A list of proposed external visitors • The names of one or more faculty sponsors • A preliminary budget, which should not exceed $10,000 The submission deadline for Mellon Graduate Workshop applications for 2009-2010 has been extended to May 20, 2009. The Dean of the Graduate School and the Mellon Faculty Coordinator will evaluate all applications and select proposals to fund for the 2009-2010 academic year. |