Spots for 2 Fielding Students at Summer School in Italy!

Fielding’s new Marie Fielder Center for Democracy, Leadership, and Education has partnered with The Utrecht Network to make two seats available for Fielding doctoral students at a one-week program in Rimini, Italy.

The Utrecht Network is a consortium of 32 member institutions in 27 countries that brings universities together to share best practices and enhance the internationalization process for both students and faculty.

The PhD Summer School is a new initiative of the Network that brings doctoral students together to advance their research interests and competencies around a particular theme. This September, the theme will be Growing Diversity as a Societal Challenge.

Fielding has been awarded two seats for doctoral students to participate. In addition, Fielding’s own Margo Okazawa-Rey has been invited as a guest faculty member.

The doctoral Summer School will be held September 19-23 in Rimini, a popular beach town on Italy’s Adriatic Sea. In total, 10 to 15 doctoral students in the social sciences and humanities will present the background and methods of their dissertations on topics pertaining to diversity and preliminary findings, if any. There will also be sessions with faculty mentors on

1. the academic substance of societal challenges
2. various (interdisciplinary) research approaches and methods that focus on issues of diversity and inclusion, and
3. discussions on how academics could contribute through their work to inform public debates on challenges in societies represented among the participants.

The two Fielding doctoral students selected to attend must have an approved dissertation topic and proposal on a subject pertaining to diversity and inclusion, and must submit a letter of endorsement from their dissertation chair.

All Fielding doctoral students who meet the above criteria are invited to submit a letter of application on or before June 6, 2016, to Orlando Taylor, Fielding’s vice president for strategic initiatives and research, at otaylor@fielding.edu with a CC to Steve Schapiro, dean for academic affairs, at sschapiro @fielding.edu.

Participants will be selected based on quality of their academic record, strength of their chair’s recommendation, and relevance of their dissertation topic to the goals of the event.

Selected applicants will each receive a stipend of $1,500 to help defray expenses to attend and participate in this extraordinary event. The Utrecht network will assume all costs for registration and meals during the summer school.

For more information, see the Summer School web page or contact Orlando Taylor at otaylor@fielding.edu.