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Summer Fellowship

Applications for the 2025 Summer Fellowship Program will open Sunday, December 8th, 2024.

 

NOTE: Othering & Belonging Institute programs are operating remotely. The 2025 Summer Fellowship will be held remotely for the safety of all staff and fellows. Fellows will work from their home locations for the entirety of the fellowship, and all fellowship meetings and activities will take place online. 

The Fellowship
The Othering & Belonging Institute Summer Fellowship is a paid research experience for individuals seeking to develop their research skills by engaging with the Institute’s multidisciplinary research, analysis, policy, and strategic narrative work. The purpose of the fellowship is to build the capacity and network of the next generation of researchers and community leaders who are committed to social and racial justice by providing mentorship and hands-on experience with social science research. In addition to working directly with their staff supervisor on an individual research project (see “Summer Projects” below),  fellows engage as a cohort in weekly meetings or workshops on Institute frameworks, research methodologies, and contemporary social justice issues throughout the summer.

  • Applications open: December 8, 2024
  • Applications close: January 5, 2025
  • Fellowship period: May 14 to August 14, 2025
  • Time Commitment: Part-time, 20 hours per week
  • Location: The 2025 Summer Fellowship will be held remotely.
    • Working Hours: Fellowship programs and meetings will be held during the Institute’s working hours from 9am-6pm Pacific Time.
  • Compensation: Each fellow’s hourly compensation rate is based on years of education completed, the University’s fixed pay scale and equity standards. Rates range from $26-31/hr
 What this Fellowship is NOT:
  • Funding or support for a dissertation, individual research project, or independently selected research topic
  • A fellowship for advanced PhD students (post second year of PhD) or professionals with extensive full-time research experience
  • An opportunity to work directly with Institute-affiliated faculty members
  • A residential, full-time fellowship

Eligibility

The summer fellowship is open to traditional and non-traditional students. As of May 2025, students must be one of the following to be eligible: 

  • Currently enrolled in community college or an undergraduate program, or graduated within the last two years (only May 2023 graduates and later are eligible)

  • Currently enrolled in a Master's program or graduated within the last two years (only May 2023 graduates and later are eligible)

  • Doctoral students in their first or second year (as of May 2025)

  • International students are also eligible, but are responsible for securing their own U.S. work permit/visa by mid-April 2025

Summer Projects
Summer fellows dedicate most of their paid work hours to their individual summer projects. Each fellow will be paired with a lead staff researcher to work on a predetermined summer-long project for a specific research area. Summer projects primarily involve independent, online research oriented toward public policy, systems change, and/or strategic narrative. Tasks will include: 

  • Background research for new or emerging projects, such as developing research databases, conducting interviews, or writing literature reviews, case studies, and brief research memoranda. 
  • Supporting ongoing research, such as data gathering, data analysis or assisting with writing sections of a book, reports, discussion papers, or other Institute publications.
  • Translating academic work into newsworthy pitches using accessible language and knowledge of current affairs. 

2025 Summer Projects:

TBD

Responsibilities & Expectations

All Summer Fellows are expected to:

  • Demonstrate a genuine commitment to social and racial justice, equity, and civil liberties.
  • Remotely, work 20 hours per week for three months (May 14 to August 14, 2025).
  • Engage in collective learning as a cohort by completing required readings and participating in regularly scheduled workshops with Institute staff, cohort meetings, and team building activities.
  • Present the findings or results of their summer project to the Institute at the end of the summer.

Minimum Qualifications

  • Research proficiency
  • Basic computer literacy
  • Ability to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills
  • Excellent interpersonal communication skills and political acumen
  • Interested in, and experience supporting social justice and equity issues
  • Self-starter with the ability to initiate and complete work with limited supervision
  • Stellar organizational skills, and ability to work independently and collaboratively

Desirable Skills 

  • Qualitative research skills, including coding qualitative data, such as interview and focus group transcripts, developing research databases, and writing literature reviews
  • Quantitative research skills, including but not limited to data collection; data entry; statistical analysis; and retrieval, compilation, manipulation, and synthesis of Census Bureau data
  • Multimedia and editorial skills, such as writing and editing electronic newsletters, video recording and editing using Adobe Premiere, and audio editing using Adobe Audition