Department of Political Science Graduate Student Diversity Award

The Political Science Department has chosen to reaffirm our longstanding commitment to students from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities in political science by raising new funds to support them.

Summer funding for graduate students is hard to come by, yet it is critical throughout a graduate student’s career at UC Davis. Early on, summer funding can make a huge difference in achieving success in the comprehensive examinations: a necessary step to advancing to candidacy, and, even more importantly, offering the student a chance to consolidate the first year or two of graduate learning in the foundations of the discipline. Later, summer funding can enable collaborative research with faculty or the submission of original research for publication. These experiences are especially important for students who come into their studies with less exposure to the substantive and methodological content of political science, and/or to the culture and practices of academia more broadly.

We are acutely aware of the higher attrition rates of underrepresented students in graduate programs across the country. Summer funding to support focused study and research can be pivotal to future success in graduate study and ensuring students remain in the program.