The budding Black studies department at the University of Rochester will fast-track their hiring of faculty with the help of a $3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Dr. Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr.University of Rochester
Though the school and department had initially planned to cluster-hire faculty for the department over the next five years, the new influx of funding – via the foundation’s Higher Learning program – will allow them to expedite their schedule, said Dr. Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr., chair of faculty programs and departmental initiatives in the university's Black studies department.
“What the Mellon grant does is it allows us to bring the department to full scale, meaning that we can actually hire up to nine to 12 people in a three-year period," McCune said. “The Mellon Foundation allows us to walk, perhaps even run, rather than crawl."
Building off of its decades-old Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African American Studies, the New York state private research university established its Black studies department in late 2022, an endeavor headed by McCune, an associate professor of Black studies.
In its first year, the nascent department had three faculty members: McCune, Dr. Jordan Ealey, a feminist scholar-artist; and Dr. Philip V. McHarris, who examines racial inequality, housing, and policing.
McCune said he knew when he arrived at the university, that the creation and fast growth of a Black studies department would require not just university investment but also external support.
“We had to find outside funding that would facilitate the expedition of hiring,” he said.
