Social Justice and Community Engagement Undergraduate Summer Fellowships 2020-2021
The Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity provides students with critical learning experiences via interdisciplinary undergraduate research fellowship programs and community engaged learning courses that ask students to analyze issues through the lens of critical race studies with an aim towards social justice. CCSRE offers six undergraduate summer fellowships as part of its Social Justice and Community Engagement Program. These include the:
- PRAXIS Community Engagement, Advocacy and Social Change Fellowship
- Community Based Research Fellowship
- ITESO Humanizing Pedagogies and Community Practice*
- Technology and Racial Justice Fellowship
- Queer Studies and Race Fellowship
- VAMP Visual Arts Making in Praxis Fellowship
These fellowships support students interested in social change, activism, community organizing, and research by developing their analytical and practical skills as social change leaders, community advocates, and scholar-activists. Each cohort of fellows will be supported through specially designed CSRE courses, skill-building workshops, faculty mentors, and a dedicated coordinating team that will engage, challenge, and empower students as they delve into meaningful and transformative work with community partners. To learn more about each fellowship, please visit the CCSRE Undergraduate Fellowship page: SJ Fellowships.
Student fellows are eligible for $5,000–$7,000 depending on financial need and location-based factors. Most fellows will receive $5,000, as most projects are currently expected to be remote.
*Cannot accept applications for the ITESO Fellowhship this year until international travel restrictions due to COVID-19 are lifted.
Note: Students interested in the CBR (Community Based Research) Fellowship should apply at https://solo.stanford.edu/apply/X1S9.
- A Spring course: Understanding Social Justice and Community Engagement
- Grassroots organizing seminars
- a 4-month collaboration/internship with an organization engaged in community organizing and/or social justice issue based work
- community-building activities, including events with community organizations and social movement leaders, a retreat, and shared meals/reflection sessions throughout the year
- a capstone project that supports the community partners’ work and deepens the students’ analytical skills
Selection
The fellowship application consists of three components:
- General background information
- 3 essays (that are 300-500 words each) describing interest in social justice work and critical race issues
- Community partner selection
Fifteen students across the varying program fellowships will be selected based on the degree to which student responses demonstrate how the fellowship will:
- Benefit the community served.
- Expand and augment the student’s major course of study.
- Integrate the student in a substantive and meaningful way into the work of a community organization committed to social justice and movement building.
- Provide valuable experience for career considerations and/or advanced study or projects such as an honors thesis.
Note: Students do not need prior experience in community work, organizing, or development, but must demonstrate a commitment to social justice work.
Priorities for funding are students:
- Majoring in an undergraduate program affiliated with CCSRE (i.e., African and African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano/a Studies, Comparative Studies, and/or Native American Studies).
- Whose proposed community research includes an analysis of race and ethnicity as a central theme.
- Are continuing an existing personal or institutional relationship with a community partner.
Requirements
Spring Quarter
Students awarded a fellowship are required to enroll in the spring quarter course, Social Justice and Community Engagement, to help prepare them for their internship experiences. In this course, fellows will critically examine practices of solidarity and allyship in movements for collective liberation. Fellows will participate in hands on racial equity and justice work and learn how movements have built multiracial solidarity to address issues that are important to the liberation of all. Fellows will also explore how racial justice intersects with other identities and issues.
Fellows will begin their collaboration with a community partner, volunteering at least 25 hours over the quarter.
CCSRE and the Haas Center will also host a luncheon meeting with all community-based research teams. These meetings allow student, faculty, and community research team members to interact with one another, learn more about the program’s curriculum, structure, and expectations, and clarify the finer points of their community-based participatory research projects. (During the 20-21 academic year, the luncheon may be cancelled or hosted virtually).
Summer Quarter
Fellows will complete several assignments in during the Summer Quarter. These assignments include:
- Bi-weekly reflections throughout the course of the internship.
- Three progress meetings with the fellowship program coordinator.
- A Capstone project.
- Community Dissemination of their research. The form of this dissemination will be decided through collaboration with the community partner. It might be a written product, web-based, an event, etc.
- Two photos that document their research.
Autumn Quarter
To deepen the integration of academic and community learning, in the autumn quarter, fellows will complete and present a capstone project addressing their research and field questions during the annual Stanford Engaged Scholars Symposium. Faculty fellows and community partners are invited to the presentations as well.
Eligibility
- Availability: This is a full-time summer research/internship opportunity for Summer Quarter 2021. You will also be required to take a spring quarter course, and present at a fall quarter research symposium.
- Time Commitment: Full-time is defined as 35+ hours per week in 10 consecutive weeks, i.e., it is the student's primary activity that quarter.
- Flex Term Requirement: Students can only be awarded a full-time VPUE Department/Faculty Grant in Summer 2021 by taking a Flex Term.
- Students must have completed two full-time enrolled quarters this academic year by the time their full-time VPUE Department/Faculty Grant begins - these quarters do not have to be consecutive.
- If a student wants to participate in a full-time VPUE Faculty/Department project in Summer 2021, they must be enrolled full-time in at least 2 quarters out of Autumn, Winter, or Spring (does not have to be consecutive quarters)
- Students are only allowed 1 Flex Term per academic year.
- International students must consult with Bechtel before attempting to take a Flex Term without three quarters of full-time enrollment first.
- Outside Commitments and Concurrent Course Enrollment:
- Other Stanford funding: A student may only receive one full-time Stanford-funded experiential learning opportunity in the 2020-21 academic year
- Full-time VPUE Faculty/Department Grant student recipients are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise), including but not limited to:
- Major Grant
- Chappell Lougee Scholarship
- Beagle II
- Haas Summer Fellowship/Cardinal Quarter
- Stanford Seed
- Departmental Grant-supported summer research position
- Faculty Grant-supported summer research position
- Other full-time summer fellowship or internship
- The above opportunities represent a significant time commitment and are intended to support a student’s unique full-time effort on a project
- Full-time VPUE Faculty/Department Grant student recipients are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise), including but not limited to:
- Other Stanford funding: A student may only receive one full-time Stanford-funded experiential learning opportunity in the 2020-21 academic year
- Students may not receive both academic units and a stipend for any single project activity.
- Funds may not be used to directly support honors thesis research. Honors students should seek funding through UAR’s Student Grants Program.
- Funds may only support current Stanford undergraduates. Co-terminal MS or MA students may be supported only if their undergraduate degree is not conferred before the conclusion of the project.
- Students are permitted to enroll in up to five units of coursework during the Flex Term in which they are engaging in a full-time VPUE Faculty/Department Grant project
- Full-time VPUE Faculty/Department Grant recipients are permitted to work at an additional internship, job, or volunteer position for no more than 10 hours per week. If a student is enrolling in coursework, then the student is not permitted to engage in any additional internship/work/volunteer opportunities.
- While full-time VPUE Faculty/Department Grant recipients are permitted to work at an additional 10 hours per week, these additional hours cannot be funded with an alternate VPUE Department/Faculty Grant
- Students who receive a full-time VPUE Faculty/Department Grant cannot enroll in five units and work 10 hours per week during a Flex Term synchronously
- Please note violations of Undergraduate Fellowship program policies are also violations of the Fundamental Standard and may be referred to the Office of Community Standards.
Project Eligibility During COVID-19
Policies regarding travel, in-person, and remote work for the 2020-21 program will be forthcoming based on University policy. As of September 2020, all Undergraduate Fellowships program applications must include a remote option. This remote option must not involve any in-person engagement and any local, domestic, or international travel. We understand that levels of COVID-19 risk and related local guidelines vary by region, but at this point no exceptions will be made.
