A newly announced, unprecedented partnership is bringing together 14 liberal arts colleges, including Knox College, and 15 research universities to encourage more students from diverse backgrounds to pursue teaching careers at liberal arts colleges.

The partnership involves the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM), an organization of 14 liberal arts colleges, and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), which is a consortium of the 14 Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. The two groups are embarking on a seven-year collaborative project, called the Undergraduate and Faculty Fellows Program for a Diverse Professoriate, that builds connections among the institutions, their students, and their faculty.

The program, which is being launched with an $8.1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, consists of numerous new initiatives designed to strengthen the diversity of faculty at liberal arts colleges.

"This grant offers Knox an important opportunity and support, and it complements the ideas and initiatives already at work on this campus, and outlined in the Knox 2018 strategic plan, that aim to help us live up to our ideals about diversity, equity, and inclusivity," said Laura Behling, dean of Knox College and vice president for academic affairs.

Key components of the Fellows Program include:

• Undergraduate fellowships to support mentoring, career development, and experiential research opportunities for 280 students from ACM colleges over the next seven years. These will include paid summer research internships on CIC campuses. Students will work directly with a graduate professor in their field to give them firsthand experience of the benefits that could be achieved through graduate training.
• Faculty fellowships in tenure-track positions at ACM colleges for 30 new scholars with terminal Master's or doctoral degrees, whose backgrounds, life experiences, and goals will enhance diversity on the ACM campuses. The program will offer mentoring and scholarly development support in the first two to four years of their faculty appointments.
• A series of annual ACM-CIC meetings and workshops focused on strengthening connections between the liberal arts colleges and research universities in the two consortia. These meetings will provide resources for colleges to create academic settings and hiring practices to support diverse and inclusive faculties.

The program's initiatives will be open to all qualified applicants, while also encouraging applications from individuals from underrepresented groups. These include African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, other Pacific Islanders, and first-generation college students. Also included are individuals who have followed non-traditional pathways to college, and other individuals with a demonstrated commitment to applying and including diverse backgrounds and perspectives to an academic environment.