Mellon Grant Will Advance the Woodson’s International Reputation

As the fall 2023 semester was drawing to a close, leaders of the Carter G. Woodson Institute, home of the College’s Department of African American and African Studies, learned that they had been awarded a $100,000 Affirming Multivocal Humanities grant from the Mellon Foundation. Established to encourage innovative new approaches to scholarship in the humanities, the award will fund the department’s faculty development efforts and create new educational opportunities for its undergraduates.

The Woodson Institute, a center for Black studies at the University since 1981, officially became UVA’s undergraduate department of African American and African studies in 2017, quickly expanding its faculty and its expertise in global scholarship. Under the direction of Robert Trent Vinson, a scholar of 19th and 20th century African & African Diaspora history and former president of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, the world’s premier professional organization of African and African Diaspora scholars, the Woodson’s mission is to develop a rigorous course of studies for students preparing for careers in law, medicine, business and academia by building a faculty that can equip students with perspectives that are international in scope.

According to Vinson, the Mellon Foundation's Affirming Multivocal Humanities grant will help the Woodson advance its mission by supporting a number of departmental initiatives over the next three years, including supporting career advancement opportunities for junior faculty members by funding a series of manuscript workshops, supporting undergraduate research opportunities and establishing a visiting-lecturer series that will attract world-class scholars to the program and help raise the department’s profile on the world stage as a center for global Black studies.

“We are thrilled to receive this award,” Vinson said. “In addition to the support we’ve received from the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Christa Acampora, and UVA provost, Ian Baucom, it’s wonderful to have this kind of external support and recognition for our rapidly growing program.”

“I am immensely proud of the work Professor Vinson and his department’s faculty have done to continue to raise the Woodson’s profile,” Dean Acampora said.  “Members of leadership at UVA know that the Woodson is a premier center for research and scholarship in African and African American studies, and it is deeply rewarding to see its efforts gaining support and recognition beyond Grounds.”

Acampora added, “To quote the former director of the Woodson, Deborah McDowell, ‘If you want to find out where scholarship is going in African American and African Diaspora scholarship, find out who is at the Woodson Institute.’”