Berea, Ky. -- The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the Appalachian College Association (ACA) that will expand undergraduate research expertise and opportunities for faculty and students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences at more than two dozen colleges in Central Appalachia, ACA President Alice Brown announced today.

The funds will support a new collaboration between the ACA and University of North Carolina Asheville. “Our various collaborations with state universities have produced great benefits for faculty at our 37 small, private colleges; such ventures allow both parties—public and private—to benefit from the strengths of each other," Dr. Brown said.

UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder worked in concert with Dr. Brown in developing the Mellon-funded initiative. “We look forward to the interdisciplinary, collaborative institutes and conferences that will result from generosity and interest in undergraduate research of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Appalachian College Association," Chancellor Ponder said. "UNC Asheville has a long and distinguished history of leadership in undergraduate research, from our founding role in the National Conference on Undergraduate Research to the importance we place upon faculty mentorship of our students engaged in scholarship. Our collaboration will provide more faculty and students at ACA-member institutions and UNC Asheville the opportunity to participate fully in this life-changing work, to share the joys of research and intellectual engagement."

Dr. Mark Harvey, UNC Asheville associate professor of psychology and co-director of UNC Asheville's Undergraduate Research Program, and Dr. Edward J. Katz, UNC Asheville dean of University Programs, co-authored the initiative and serve as its principal investigators at UNC Asheville.

“Undergraduate student research is interwoven into the curriculum in almost every department at UNC Asheville. But at many other institutions, the arts, humanities and social sciences have historically received fewer undergraduate research resources than have the natural sciences. We are excited about supporting the strong mentorship of students in their undergraduate research in these academic areas, especially on projects with a strong interdisciplinary emphasis," Dr. Katz said. "Recent research has identified strong faculty mentoring as the critical element that makes undergraduate research a transformative student experience and so this will be a particular focus of the Mellon-funded collaboration.”

The first phase of the ACA-UNC Asheville Partnership for Undergraduate Research provides funding to eight faculty teams from ACA-affiliated colleges and two faculty teams from UNC Asheville to conduct team-designed, faculty-mentored undergraduate research projects. The student researchers will be invited to present their work at a special conference at UNC Asheville in Fall 2009 and to publish their scholarship in a new online journal. The Fall 2009 conference will include workshops to assist more faculty in developing similar team projects. The Mellon-funded initiative culminates with a second invitation to faculty members at ACA-affiliated institutions and UNC Asheville to apply for funds to support undergraduate research projects for the following academic year. UNC Asheville will host a second conference in Fall 2010.

For more information, contact Dr. Katz at 828/250-3872 or Dr. Harvey at 828/251-6831.

The Appalachian College Association, headquartered in Berea, Ky., is a non-profit consortium of 37 private liberal arts colleges and universities in the central Appalachian region of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Collectively, the ACA-member institutions serve some 44,000 students.