Coe College professor earns prestigious fellowship
Coe College Associate Professor of English and National Fellowship Advisor Dr. Amber Shaw has been named an Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Academic Leadership Fellow. Only 10 fellows were chosen, representing nine ACM institutions. Recipients of the fellowship are tenured faculty in the arts, humanities and humanistic social sciences.
Shaw, who serves as Coe’s English department chair and national fellowship advisor, has guided multiple Kohawks in their pursuit of fellowships and scholarships including a Rhodes Scholar this academic year.
As an ACM Academic Leadership Fellow, Shaw will gain firsthand knowledge and grow her understanding of leadership on college campuses to prepare her to support Coe in navigating current challenges and opportunities.
The fellowship spans two years and Shaw will receive an annual stipend, professional development, course release time and dedicated mentorship. Practical experiences include sessions on budgeting and leading through crisis, large scale project management experience and immersive summer institutes. While Shaw is engaging in her fellowship, Coe will receive funding to hire replacement instructors.
Funding is provided through a generous $1.16 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. This is the second cohort of academic leadership fellows.
"I am thrilled to have been selected as an ACM Academic Leadership Fellow. I look forward to meeting and working with my peers at other liberal arts colleges across the country while also expanding fellowship opportunities for students and faculty on campus at Coe. I am grateful to the Mellon Foundation for recognizing the important role the humanities and humanities faculty members play in liberal arts colleges," Shaw said.
Coe will assign special projects to Shaw during her fellowship — each fellow is expected to contribute to campus initiatives like bringing foundational leadership to new campus centers, developing resources to support external grant-seeking or shepherding curricular initiatives among other projects.
“Dr. Shaw already contributes on this campus as a professor, mentor and colleague. She is a proven leader, and I’m excited for her to continue to serve the Coe community in an expanded fashion,” said Coe College Provost Angela Ziskowski.
“We witnessed transformative growth in members of our first group of ACM Fellows, and we are confident the same will be true for this second cohort,” said Brian Williams, ACM’s vice president for strategic initiatives. “Our work at ACM to deepen the bench of campus leaders is key to supporting our member colleges as they plan for the future in ways that advance their reputations for excellence in teaching, learning and community connectedness.”
The 2025-2027 ACM Academic Leadership Fellows will begin their appointed terms on July 1, 2025.