The Five College Mellon Faculty Leadership Development Program provides intensive training and support for emergent and established leaders in the humanities. The Program prepares humanities faculty at Five Colleges' member institutions (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst) to take on leadership roles by developing their administrative leadership skills.

Funded through The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation "Building Academic Leaders in the Humanities" grant awarded to Five Colleges, Inc., the program supports two annual institutes, one designed for early- to mid-career faculty who are planning to take on their first administrative responsibilities, and another for current faculty administrators looking to move into higher leadership roles. Facilitated by experienced campus leaders, the institutes will cover subjects ranging from managing budgets to maintaining work-life balance. Developing participants’ capacity to support diversity, equity, and inclusion is an overall theme of both institutes. The launch of the program was announced in February 2022.

2022-2023 Mellon Faculty Leadership Development Participants

• Sofiya Alhassan - Graduate Program Director and Professor of Kinesiology
• Kiran Asher - Incoming Department Chair and Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Caryn Brause - Associate Professor of Architecture
• Young Min Moon - Department Chair and Professor of Art
• Pari Riahi - Assistant Professor of Architecture 
• TreaAndrea Russworm - Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and Associate Professor of English
• Monika Schmitter - Department Chair and Professor of History of Art & Architecture
• Lindiwe Sibeko - Department Chair and Associate Professor of Nutrition
• Cara Takakjian - Senior Lecturer in Languages, Literatures and Cultures