The Office of the Provost requests nominations for the sixteenth cohort of Penn Fellows and the fourth cohort of Mellon Fellows.

Penn Fellows Program

The Penn Fellows program provides select mid-career faculty (newly tenured to early full professors) with opportunities to develop their leadership skills, think strategically, interact with campus leaders, and build cross-university networks of support. Previous Penn Fellows have subsequently served as deans, department chairs, and vice provosts.

Mellon Fellows Program

The Mellon Fellows program seeks to support mid-career faculty (newly tenured to full professors) from core humanities and arts disciplines and from departments that are strongly inflected by the humanities and/or scholars whose work is strongly based in cultural/historical analysis. The program is intended to orient arts and humanities faculty to the fundamentals of leadership roles, encourage collaboration and community across departments and disciplines, and build the next generation of higher education leaders imbued with humanistic culture and values.

Expectations

Participants are expected to participate in the leadership development sessions created for these programs, which will be scheduled over the course of the 2024-2025 academic year. Participants will also be invited to participate in the Provost’s Leadership Academy.

Qualifications

Candidates for both programs should be mid-career faculty (newly tenured to full professors) with a demonstrated record of academic excellence, administrative leadership potential, and interest in higher education leadership. Of particular interest are faculty who have not yet held senior higher education leadership positions, faculty from groups that are historically underrepresented in higher education leadership, and faculty who can further contribute to the excellence and diversity of our campus leadership.

The Mellon Fellows Program is limited to faculty in core humanities and arts disciplines, from departments that are strongly inflected by the humanities, and/or whose work is strongly based in cultural/historical analysis.

Request for Nominations

Nominations should be submitted to provost-fac@upenn.edu by February 15, 2024. Nominations should identify the preferred program and include a letter of support from the dean or department chair and the candidate’s curriculum vitae. Previously nominated candidates may be re-nominated.

Please direct questions to Laura Perna at lperna@upenn.edu.