W&L’s Diego Millan Named 2021-22 Career Enhancement Fellow The Career Enhancement Fellowship seeks to increase underrepresented junior and other faculty members by creating career development opportunities.

By Erica Turman
May 10, 2021

The Institute for Citizens & Scholars has named Washington and Lee University’s Diego Millan, assistant professor of English, a Career Enhancement Fellow for the 2021-22 academic year. Millan is one of 39 instructors from across the country accepted into this year’s cohort.

The Career Enhancement Fellowship, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Citizens & Scholars, seeks to increase underrepresented junior and other faculty members in the humanities, social sciences and arts by creating career development opportunities for selected fellows with promising research projects.

“I’m beyond grateful to be selected as a member of this year’s cohort,” Millan said. “The additional support, along with W&L’s pre-tenure leave program, means I will be able to focus on research and writing for the upcoming academic year as I work on my first book, ‘Laughing at the End of the World.'”

W&L’s Henryatta Ballah, assistant professor of history, is a current Career Enhancement Fellow for 2020-21. Her research project is titled “Rubber is Slavery: Labor and the Firestone Rubber Company.” The work examines the company’s labor policies and workers’ protest on its one million-acre plantation in Liberia from 1925 to 1970.

“Henryatta was a tremendous help when I was putting together my application materials,” Millan said.

The program provides fellows with a six-month or one-year sabbatical stipend, a research travel or publication stipend, mentoring and participation in a professional development retreat.

“Through the fellowship’s mentoring component, I will receive targeted feedback on chapters from this project, and I am so happy that Rinaldo Walcott, professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at University of Toronto, has agreed to mentor me.”

Walcott is the author of several books, including “The Long Emancipation: Moving Toward Black Freedom” and “On Property.” He is the co-author of “BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom.”

Administered at Citizens & Scholars since 2001, the Career Enhancement Fellowship has supported more than 400 junior faculty members, creating a robust network of scholars committed to eradicating racial disparities in core fields in the arts and humanities.

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