University of Wisconsin and other Midwest research universities are strengthening their relationships with liberal arts colleges to both increase diversity in graduate programs and attract newly minted PhDs to teach in smaller colleges.

The Undergraduate and Faculty Fellows Program for a Diverse Professoriate, a seven year initiative, will receive $8.1 million in funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to address the demographics of the professors in the humanities and social sciences.

The program’s first component will provide students from liberal arts schools the opportunity to explore graduate programs at research institutions, while the second component will encourage new PhDs to consider positions at liberal arts schools through temporary fellowships at those institutions.

Elaine Klein, UW assistant dean and director of university general education, said since coming to a large research institution for graduate school is often a difficult transition for students from liberal arts colleges, the program will help those students understand student life at large institutions.

“I think it stabilizes a relationship that has long existed and creates opportunities for students to help make their future here at the university more successful,” Klein said.

To accomplish its goal of increasing racial and socioeconomic diversity in academia, the program will strengthen the network between the 14 liberal arts colleges in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and the 15 research universities affiliated with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, to which UW belongs.

The program will especially aid students in liberal arts colleges, Christopher Welna, president of ACM said. While liberal arts students traditionally go to graduate school in greater numbers than non-liberal arts students, the initiative will provide an opportunity for first generation and minority students from these institutions to become more familiar with a large university setting.

“It will indeed help students from liberal arts colleges to make the transition to graduate school by gaining some familiarity beforehand with things that might already be familiar for students at research universities,” Welna said.

More specifically, because there are not many research opportunities available for liberal arts undergraduates, the initiative will over the course of seven years provide about 280 liberal arts undergraduates at ACM colleges with mentoring, career development and a paid summer research internship at a CIC school.

Amber Cox, associate director of the CIC, said while institutions will technically compete for the $8.1 million in funding, where the money is allocated is more a case of whether a student has the right credentials to work with a faculty member at a CIC institution.

“There may be some campuses that only have a couple of the students, there may be a campus that has several,” Cox said. “It’s not really a competition [among universities], it’s really about fit.”

The second component of the program will offer 30 new PhD graduates, preferably from CIC research institutions, with faculty fellowships at ACM liberal arts colleges with the hope of increasing diversity among professors at those institutions as well.

Welna said since liberal arts schools are much smaller than research institutions, the composition of their faculty matters greatly, especially for increasing numbers of minority undergraduate students.

“It makes a difference if you see professors who are like you and who have had experiences like you’ve had and can serve as role models in life after school,” Welna said.

Klein said the program will additionally help strengthen PhD graduates’ resumes with teaching experience in small college settings. She said having experience with the different philosophy of teaching in liberal arts colleges will ultimately diversify a candidate’s portfolio and will boost job prospects.

Cox said the program includes a one year planning process in which participating institutions will identify contacts to help match students from ACM schools with CIC faculty.