One of FMS’s long-term goals is to make the humanities departments of American colleges and universities more diverse, both culturally and intellectually. In order to realize this goal, we ran a national summer institute from 2005 to 2010. The institute fostered collaborative research and provided a mentoring context in which minority scholars (broadly defined to include all those whose access to social and cultural institutions is limited by their social identities) and those interested in minority studies can work productively and go on to occupy leadership roles in the academy.