Mellon Mays Fellow Lucy Carreno-Roca '16 Attends Conference in South Africa
Over winter break Lucy Carreno-Roca ’16 spent ten-days taking part in an “experiential” conference for Mellon Mays fellows in Cape Town, South Africa.
“The conference was centered on inequalities and their consequences and intended to broaden American and South African participants’ understandings of the South African socioeconomic, racial, cultural, historical and environmental landscape through critical inquiry, cultural immersion, reflection and debate,” explained Carreno-Roca after she returned.
Lucy was joined at the conference by students and Mellon Mays coordinators from throughout the U.S and South Africa.
The conference begins with a day of volunteer activities and cultural immersion in Cape Town. The fellows visited a wine vineyard, museum, and other historical sites that they then utilized when examining Cape Town’s colonial imprint. Education, healthcare and housing were among the recurring themes that Lucy and the other Mellon Mays fellows critically discussed throughout the conference.
Lucy is a double major in English and Psychology at Bryn Mawr. She became a Mellon Mays Fellow her sophomore year. She works as a writing tutor at the college’s writing center and is also a Gates Millenium and Dell scholar. Her research on South African post-apartheid literature will be published to the Mellon Mays Journal. She is also interested in Central American literature.
“As a first generation Latina aspiring to obtain a PhD. and enter the professorate, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship at Bryn Mawr has provided me with a wonderfully supportive cohort of like-minded individuals as well as intellectual and financial support to pursue my research interests,” she says.
The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship is the centerpiece of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s initiatives to increase diversity in the faculty ranks of institutions of higher learning. Established in 1988, MMUF works to achieve its mission by identifying and supporting students of great promise and helping them to become scholars of the highest distinction who will go on to transform the academy.
The Mellon Mays Fellowship is accepting applications from sophomores at Bryn Mawr from now until February 15, 2016. For more information on the program and current fellows visit, http://www.brynmawr.edu/mellon/about.html
~ Diamond Ray '18