Diversity & Equity Grant to Support Enhanced Research and Pedagogy for Graduate Students
NEW GRANT ENABLES PROGRAMS AND INITIATIVES IN SUPPORT OF INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce its receipt of a major three-year grant from the Graduate Committee on Equity and Diversity. The grant aims to create a supportive community for our students, especially those who have, either as a result of their socio-economic background, or challenging life experiences, overcome substantial obstacles on their journey to college or graduate school.
It also seeks to support those who are the first in their family to attend college or graduate school – by expanding their numbers and by fostering a pedagogical and research environment that will be hospitable and inviting to them.
To this end, and growing out of consultation with both students and faculty, the department sought and obtained funding for a number of initiatives to be rolled out over the next three years. We hope with this project to support under-resourced students intellectually and financially, and to better understand the pedagogical and research gaps in the department. To this end we plan the following initiatives, briefly sketched below:
Three one-year fellowships offered to incoming PhD students (socio-cultural or archaeology) from socio-economically under-resourced backgrounds. Each fellowship will fund a year of research or writing plus relocation expenses and a research expenses fund. For more information on these fellowships, named for Zora Neale Hurston and Ella Deloria, click here.
One two-year postdoctoral fellowship. The postdoctoral scholar will teach one course each year on Black, Latinx and/or Indigenous North America, broadly construed, and will help develop Boas programming and a pedagogy workshop, as outlined below.
Boas lectures will be organized jointly by the incoming postdoctoral scholar, together with a faculty member and a graduate student (changing each year).
A one-day pedagogy workshop where we invite speakers from the fields of education and anthropology to facilitate discussion about transformative and inclusive pedagogies.
Additional Practicum training that will center on teaching race and indigeneity in the classroom, and coping with the unique burdens that are often expected of minority faculty. We will invite external facilitators to develop these conversations together with the faculty.
A small dedicated fund for undergraduate and graduate students with the aim of fostering more student-led conversations and initiatives that touch on questions of race and indigeneity, equity and diversity.
A small discretionary fund as additional support for our under-represented students, (undergraduate and graduate) for unexpected emergencies, the costs of graduate school applications etc. This is separate from the COVID related financial relief provided by the department.
Over the three years of funding we plan to consult with students, faculty and the postdoctoral fellow at the end of each year to discuss what has worked and what has not, and how we might adjust going forward.