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Ron and Anne Mellor met on a blind date while they were both teaching at Stanford. A photo taken on their wedding day depicts a scene straight out of the swinging Sixties, with Anne in a mini dress she sewed for the occasion and Ron in a velvet jacket made by Mick Jagger’s tailor.
Advancing Academia
Their shared passion for teaching and research first brought them together, and they continue to discover areas where their interests intersect. Perhaps the most important of those areas is UCLA College, where they are prominent faculty members with a combined 66 years of distinguished service. Anne Mellor is a distinguished research professor of English, and her husband, Ronald Mellor, is a distinguished professor emeritus and former chair of the history department.
Assisting Academics
They further distinguished themselves and gave the humanities and social sciences at UCLA a big helping hand by making a joint $1 million pledge to be divided between the English and history departments. The gift will endow graduate student fellowships in their home departments and the Ronald and Anne Mellor Endowed Educational Fund, which will provide resources for visiting lecturers, summer travel-study opportunities, and new acquisitions for UCLA’s special library collections.
Attracting Ability
“Graduate students are central to the whole research enterprise, “says Ron Mellor, in explaining his motivation for the gift. “If you don’t have good graduate students, you cannot keep good faculty. They are what make a real research university tick.”
Anne Mellor echoed her husband’s sentiment, saying of the gift to the English department, “I felt strongly about helping the department beef up recruitment packages to make sure the best graduate students come here.”
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Published December 2015
For their wedding day, Anne wore a mini dress she sewed for the occasion, and Ron donned a velvet jacket made by Mick Jagger’s tailor.
The Mellors’ gift will provide travel-study opportunities for UCLA students. (Photo credit: Birtu Belete)
Students enhance their knowledge of art while visiting museums around the world.
The Mellors’ gift will endow graduate student fellowships in English and history.
The Mellors’ gift will support new acquisitions for UCLA’s special library collections. (Photo credit: Elena Zhukova)
The Ronald and Anne Mellor Endowed Educational Fund will advance scholarship in UCLA College. (Photo credit: Elena Zhukova)
