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Description
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Through a campus wide
competition that required Schools and Departments to
nominate a cohort of six students who are actively engaged
in research with their mentors, a School of Social Sciences
team was awarded a fellowship for the 1999-2000 academic
year. Their proposal, entitled "Increasing the Viability of
Women in Social Sciences," aims to redress the imbalance
between the ratio of women graduate students and women
academics in Social Sciences (46% and 22%, respectively) by
enhancing the professional preparation of the six women
students on the team. Each of the students is entering her
third or fourth year in a social science field in which
women are underrepresented. Six faculty members will work as
their mentors. The faculty members helped frame the proposal
and will work with the Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs
and the students to improve their research, professional,
and teaching skills and to evaluate the success of their
efforts.
Three sections of the
proposal establish mentorship at several levels designed to
increase chances for professional viability and research
achievement. Each student must sign up for one to three
independent study courses with her mentor. In addition,
students will participate in peer mentoring and mentoring by
the Associate Dean. The faculty mentors are committed not
only to mentoring the students, but also to using the
fellowship as an opportunity to improve their mentoring
skills. As mentioned above, the students will be expected to
improve their skills in three areas: research, professional
development, and teaching. The research segment will involve
preparing a manuscript suitable for publication in a
peer-reviewed journal and preparing and submitting a grant
proposal. Professional development will involve submitting
an abstract to a professional society and attending its
meeting, along with preparing a blind peer review of a
paper. For the teaching segment, each student will prepare a
syllabus for an introductory course for undergraduates and
develop an outreach activity designed to encourage women and
minorities to enter the social sciences.
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