Mellon Foundation gives $800,000 to support Independent Study

Grant will help establish six new faculty positions, workshops on mentoring undergraduate research

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will provide $800,000 over four years to support the one-on-one mentoring relationships that are the heart of Independent Study, The College of Wooster’s signature academic program. The grant will allow the college to hire six new full-time, tenure-track faculty during that period, while simultaneously reducing the number of one-year visiting professors who must be hired annually to fill in for faculty on research or study leave.

Since the Independent Study program was established 60 years ago, the college’s commitment to providing a mentored undergraduate research experience to each of its students has been matched by its commitment to a faculty leaves program that is unparalleled among institutions with comparable resources. The leaves insure that faculty have the opportunity to remain engaged in their fields and produce new scholarly work, and enrich their advising of students pursuing their own research projects.

Visiting faculty are typically hired to replace those on leave.  It is especially challenging, however, for visiting faculty to advise students doing their Independent Study projects.  The Mellon grant will allow the college to phase in six new, full-time faculty positions in departments where regular leaves can be anticipated and eliminate the need to hire leave replacements in those departments.

“This is a paradigm example of how the Mellon Foundation helps strengthen the nation’s best liberal arts colleges,” said Grant H. Cornwell, Wooster’s president. “They recognize and support strategies that enable colleges like Wooster to fulfill their missions and advance their core programs.  The real beneficiaries of Mellon’s grant will be those students who will have more continuing faculty available to mentor their research.”

The Mellon grant will also fund a workshop for new Wooster faculty members at the beginning of each academic year to help them develop the mentoring skills needed to support undergraduate research in general and Independent Study in particular.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a private philanthropic institution, with assets of approximately $5 billion, that makes grants on a selective basis to institutions of higher education, independent libraries, centers for advanced study, museums, art conservation, and performing arts organizations. The Foundation’s Liberal Arts Colleges Program provides multiyear grants to support research and professional opportunities for faculty members, strengthen liberal arts colleges, and assist colleges as they refresh their curricular offerings.

The College of Wooster is an independent liberal arts college, nationally recognized for an innovative curriculum that emphasizes mentored independent research. Each Wooster senior works one-on-one with a faculty adviser to create an original research project, written work, performance or art exhibit. Founded in 1866, the college enrolls approximately 1,800 students.