Mellon Mays fellows make their mark 

By Alexandra McLaughlin ’16

Two students share their experiences as Mellon Mays fellows.

Macalester alumni of the distinguished Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship have gone on to make an extraordinary impact on the national stage. Among them is Tsione Wolde-Michael ’08, executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Wolde-Michael is the youngest and first Black person to lead the committee, where she advocates for increased support for libraries, museums, and the arts.

The highly competitive Mellon Mays program identifies exceptional students from institutions across the country, offering them financial support for research, conference participation, mentorship opportunities, and access to a network of peers. Fellows prepare for PhD programs and careers as scholars and faculty members. Established in 1988 by the Mellon Foundation, the program seeks to inspire undergraduates from underrepresented groups to pursue PhDs and enter academia. 

Two of Macalester’s Mellon Mays fellows recently shared insights into their compelling research projects. 

Karla Garcia ’25 (St. Paul) is studying how the Latinx diaspora in the Upper Midwest utilizes the Catholic Church as a place to create community and nurture a sense of “home.” Her research involves ethnographic interviews with parish members and formal leadership. 

“Born in the Midwest to a Mexican immigrant, my studies aim to uplift the voices and experiences of the communities that foster my identity.”

“Born in the Midwest to a Mexican immigrant, my studies aim to uplift the voices and experiences of the communities that foster my identity,” she said. 

Most Latinx scholarship focuses on U.S. regions with larger Latinx populations, like the West and South. “The Latinx Midwestern experience is a unique and often overlooked perspective,” Garcia said.  

Garcia’s case study is a first step toward a broader project exploring Latinx cultivation of belonging within unconventional gathering spaces.

Her experience as a Mellon Mays Fellow has deepened her passion for research, and she hopes to pursue a PhD in American Studies with a focus on Latinx Studies, something she said “used to seem so unobtainable and foreign.” 

“This experience introduced me to the specific historical context of the area around Macalester, which helped me think more intentionally about place and space as a student here.” 

“Knowing that the basis of the university system rests in settler colonialism and white supremacy, we must question what the greater impact of engaging with liberatory education can be when we are limited by the institution that we operate out of.”

Last fall, Yang conducted an ethnography of a Macalester course that aimed to incorporate decolonial theory into the pedagogy and course content. After taking daily field notes and interviewing students, she is now analyzing the data to identify what it looks like to put decolonization into practice and engage with the theory as a process rather than an endpoint. 

“One dimension I’m looking at is how the professor works to dismantle traditional hierarchies in the classroom by developing reciprocal relationships in the classrooms and cultivating an environment of mutual learning,” they said. 

Yang appreciated the course’s engagement with the Reconnect Rondo project, which seeks to rebuild the neighborhood displaced by I-94. 

“We processed data and learned from a Rondo community organization, who shared memories of what the neighborhood was before its destruction,” Yang said. “This experience introduced me to the specific historical context of the area around Macalester, which helped me think more intentionally about place and space as a student here.” 

Yang hopes their research encourages others to think about decolonization within universities. Grateful for the Mellon Mays program, they plan to pursue a PhD and become a professor.

“My mentors at Macalester have been a crucial part of my development as a researcher and I’d love to provide that same support to students like me when I eventually work in academia,” they said.