Tag Archives: publishing

2018–2019 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship

The University of Washington Press (job number 152934), Duke University Press (Careers), MIT Press (job number 15648), and the University of Georgia Press (job number S00514P) are now accepting applications for the 2018–2019 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship Program. The program seeks to increase diversity in scholarly publishing by providing year-long fellowships in the acquisitions departments of the four university presses with the support of the Association of University Presses and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Search committees will begin reviewing applications after March 15, 2018. Selected fellows will be notified by April 14, 2018, to begin the year-long fellowship on June 1, 2018.

Meet the 2016-2017 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellow: Niccole Leilanionapae‘āina Coggins

Niccole Coggins staff news photo On June 1, 2016, University of Washington Press welcomed our first Mellon University Press Diversity Fellow, Niccole Leilanionapae‘āina Coggins, who joins us from the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Niccole’s research interests focus on Hawaiian history as well as identity and mixed race youth. Niccole is currently a PhD candidate working, under the direction of Dr. Paul Spickard. on her dissertation titled “‘I Wish They Would Leave Those Negro Soldiers Alone’: Native Hawaiian and Japanese American Perceptions and Interactions with Blacks in World War II Hawai’i,” which focuses on how the military changed the identity of Hawaiian society during the territorial period.

Niccole’s work with underrepresented communities includes participation in a local hula hālau, and student life programs at Carleton College, Macalester College, and UCSB. She characterizes her scholarly research as profoundly personal, given her mixed race identity as both Black and Native Hawaiian.

With a BA in American studies, an MA in religion and society, and as a PhD candidate in history, with special emphasis on Pacific Islander studies and Native American studies, Niccole’s academic interests intersect with a number of areas of our lists here at the University of Washington Press.

Please welcome Niccole to the Press!

UBC Press and University of Washington Press to develop digital publishing platform in Indigenous studies with grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

SEATTLE, WA—The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the University of British Columbia a three-year $509,000 grant to support a collaboration between UBC Press and the University of Washington Press for the development of a new writing and publishing infrastructure for Indigenous studies scholarship.

Melissa Pitts, director at UBC Press, said the project responds to the needs of a new generation of readers, scholars, students, and practitioners pursuing Indigenous research and cultural revitalization projects: “The new platform will serve scholars engaged in collaborative research, writing, and publishing with and within Indigenous communities. It will combine mainstream and academic frameworks, enabling respectful protocols for accessing and circulating cultural heritage in an online environment.”

“Our project is designed to provide solutions to existing barriers to full participation in the exchange of ideas and knowledge,” said Darcy Cullen, project lead and UBC Press editor. “We will create a digital hub in which Indigenous communities and scholars can work together to create, share, and preserve content and present their findings in new and useful ways.”

UBC Press and University of Washington Press will develop a digital platform for Indigenous multimedia books. Based on Scalar, an authoring and publishing platform, it will offer a suite of tools for linking data and analyses to digital content from around the world and for interacting in culturally sensitive ways with heritage materials, ranging from clothing, beadwork, weapons, and tools to songs, stories, and dances. It will include customizable methods for authoring teams to label content and inform readers about cultural protocols for access and use of specific content.

The multimedia books will incorporate, and offer seamless navigation through, textual, audio, and visual materials and will organize content in different ways for different purposes, offering navigational paths tailored for distinct audiences: scholars, community-based groups and organizations with a stake in Indigenous languages and cultural heritage, and instructors and their students.

Jill Campbell, coordinator for the Musqueam Language and Culture Department, applauded the project’s vision: “We are in full support of this respectful, digital publishing platform, which facilitates collaborative partnerships with the First Nations communities and highlights the scholarship of First Nations language, culture, and history to render it more broadly accessible. It stands to be a transformative part of the current broad-based movement towards the revitalization of the rich linguistic and cultural heritage vested in the First Nations in this region and beyond.”

Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse of the University of Washington’s Burke Museum highlighted the need for this project for the Indigenous arts: “The visual aspects of Indigenous arts are fundamentally tied to movement, song, land, and language. Digital technologies have the potential to reflect the connections between cultural belongings (artifacts) and their associated intangible rights. By harnessing these new technologies, this project will enhance the understanding and revitalization of cultural practices, while allowing for more robust forums for collaborative knowledge production.”

As the leading publishers of Indigenous studies scholarship in the Northwest, UBC Press and University of Washington Press are spearheading this initiative. It will be developed in partnership with the UBC Library, museums (UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, the Reciprocal Research Network, and UW’s Burke Museum), experts in intellectual property and cultural heritage management in a digital environment (Mukurtu, Local Contexts), First Nations communities and organizations (the Musqueam Indian Band, the Kwagiulth First Nation, and the First Nations Technology Council), platform developers and digital management specialists (the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, which produces the authoring and publishing platform Scalar), among others.

Nicole Mitchell, director at University of Washington Press, said: “As publishers with a deep history of supporting knowledge production by and with Indigenous, First Nations, and Native American people and communities, we are grateful for the support of the Mellon Foundation to take this work forward into the digital and multimedia future.”

According to Chadwick Allen, associate vice provost for faculty advancement at University of Washington, “This innovative project is yet another indication of the leadership role the University of Washington is taking in the development of Native American and Indigenous studies—across disciplines and institutions, through the integration of new technologies with traditional sources of knowledge, and in respectful collaboration with sovereign Native nations.”

About the University of Washington Press: Established in 1920, the University of Washington Press supports the research, education, and outreach missions of the University of Washington by publishing peer-reviewed scholarship for an international community of students, scholars, and intellectually curious readers. The press is known for groundbreaking lists in critical ethnic studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; Asian American studies; Asian studies; anthropology; art history and visual culture; environmental studies; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and U.S. history, among other fields.

About UBC Press: UBC Press produces books integral to Canada’s cultural, political, and social fabric and is recognized for its contributions to Indigenous studies, Canadian history, political science, environmental history, law and society, gender and sexuality studies, and transnational studies, among others. Established in 1971, the press publishes sophisticated and transformative works by authors whose thought and research pushes the boundaries of scholarly discourse and makes a vital contribution to the democratic exchange of ideas.

For more information, please contact:

University of Washington Press, Beth Fuget, Advancement at 206-616-0818 or bfuget [at] uw.edu

UBC Press, Kerry Kilmartin, Publicist and Events Manager at 604-822-8244 or kilmartin [at] ubcpress.ca

From the Desk of Larin McLaughlin: The Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship Program

In this guest post, UW Press editor in chief and Principal Investigator Larin McLaughlin writes about how the Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship Program (application deadline: March 15, 2016) came to be:

In the past six months, two children’s books have incited controversy with their rosy depictions of enslaved African Americans making desserts for their owners. On the heels of the well-tweeted #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, which brought national attention to the lack of diversity in children’s book publishing, objections to the books flew across social media platforms. On my own Facebook feed, scholar and cultural critic Rebecca Wanzo nailed a key question that pervades these controversies: “who was in the room?” Publishing houses produce all-too-frequent situations where critical decisions are made without the benefit of diverse perspectives, and who is in the room certainly matters.

In the case of A Birthday Cake for George Washington, author Ramin Ganeshram describes how her concerns about racial representation went unheeded in the collaboration between author, illustrator, and publisher. Overall, those best positioned to bring critical and diverse perspectives to publishing decisions are still significantly underrepresented in the industry: recent surveys such as the 2015 Publishers Weekly Salary Survey and the Diversity Baseline Survey demonstrate important differences in demographics between publishing professionals in the U.S. and the U.S. population more generally. Continue reading →

$682,000 Mellon grant to help academic publishers increase workforce diversity

SEATTLE, WA—A four-year, $682,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded to the University of Washington will help four university presses and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) create a pipeline program to diversify academic publishing by offering apprenticeships in acquisitions departments.

The collaborative project involves the University of Washington Press, the MIT Press, Duke University Press, the University of Georgia Press, and the AAUP. The University Press Diversity Fellowship Program will create cohorts of four fellows per year for three years. The program will recruit fellows who have significant personal experience and engagement with diverse communities and a demonstrated ability to bring the understandings gleaned from such engagement to the daily work of academic publishing.

“The University Press Diversity Fellowship Program builds on the University of Washington’s longstanding commitment to inclusion and social justice,” said Gerald Baldasty, UW interim provost and executive vice president. “The program aligns with UW president Ana Mari Cauce’s mission to support and sustain diversity at the university and the communities it serves through her Race and Equity Initiative.”

Fellows will have the opportunity to connect with one another and engage with industry colleagues at two AAUP annual meetings. “AAUP congratulates the University of Washington Press, along with the other AAUP member presses participating in the Diversity Fellowship Program,” said Peter Berkery, AAUP executive director. “Because diversity is a core AAUP value, we are eager to welcome Diversity Fellows to our future annual meetings. I know other member presses will be interested in this program, and I look forward to helping our community build on its success.”

The University Press Diversity Fellowship Program is the first cross-press initiative of its kind in the United States to address the marked lack of diversity that characterizes the publishing industry. Although university presses have long fostered and supported diversity-related fields such as Native and Indigenous studies; African American studies; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and Asian American studies, the fellowship program represents a significant investment in creating career development opportunities and a supportive environment for diversity publishing.

Principal investigator and UW Press editor in chief Larin McLaughlin said, “From editorial strategy and list development priorities to growing revenue from emerging markets to the finer points of culturally sensitive copyediting and cover design, enhancing diversity within the workforce of university press publishing has the potential to improve the relevance and efficacy of publishers for an increasingly diverse audience of scholars, students, authors, and readers.”

Another desired outcome of the fellowship program is to develop best-practice strategies and tactics for fostering diversity at all levels of the profession. Further, this collaboration will focus attention on the centrality of diversity in all its forms to the future of global academic discourse and, it is hoped, will inspire related efforts to prioritize diversity more broadly in the publishing industry.

“One of the prime joys of our job as editors in the university press world is that we publish books that truly make a difference to academic and broader communities,” said Mick Gusinde-Duffy, editor in chief of the University of Georgia Press. “We’re taking positive steps toward a more diverse cohort of publishing professionals that takes transformative publishing to a whole new level.”

Gita Manaktala, editorial director of the MIT Press, commented, “We expect to learn a lot from our three fellows and hope that each will find lasting and rewarding opportunities in university press publishing. If so, the major beneficiary of this program will be the university press community itself, along with the wider communities of scholars, students, and general readers we serve.”

The program will offer each fellow opportunities for one-on-one mentoring as well as monthly cross-press video conferences led by staff at partner presses, covering a range of topics designed to supplement the hands-on training.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in this much-needed diversity fellowship program,” said Courtney Berger, senior editor and editorial department manager of Duke University Press. “This fellowship will help Duke University Press to foster a more diverse staff that better reflects the wide-ranging perspectives and backgrounds that inform the Press’s publications, our authors, and our readership.”

Outreach and recruitment by the program’s selection committee will begin this month, with the first cohort of Diversity Fellows starting their apprenticeships in June 2016.

“The University of Washington is extremely proud that our press is leading this transformative initiative,” said David L. Eaton, dean of the UW graduate school. “And we are truly grateful for Mellon’s vital partnership and support.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Larin McLaughlin, Editor in Chief of University of Washington Press, at 206-221-4995 or lmclaugh [at] uw.edu.

Gita Manaktala, Editorial Director of The MIT Press, at manak [at] mit.edu.

Courtney Berger, Senior Editor & Editorial Department Manager of Duke University Press, at cberger [at] dukeupress.edu.

Mick Gusinde-Duffy, Assistant Director for Acquisitions and Editor-in-Chief of The University of Georgia Press, at mickg [at] uga.edu.

University of Washington Press Blog

The University of Washington Press is the nonprofit book and multimedia publishing arm of the University of Washington.