I am excited to announce that our partnership with Howard University’s Economics Department to provide inclusive, peer, on-site, and distance (IPOD) mentoring received a $1.9 million grant from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. This funding will allow WISER to support alumni of the American Economic Association Summer Training Program with professional development and mentorship via pods of 3-4 students and 2 mentors. Each student is eligible for 3 years of support, including GRE prep, conference attendance, and other professional development activities to prepare students for the doctorate in economics. The IPOD mentoring program provides structured mentoring and professional development to alumni of the Howard University AEASP who are still undergraduates, master’s students, or research assistants. We believe the IPODs mentoring program is the missing link in the economics profession pipeline.
The IPOD mentoring program is model after the Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics (DITE), which I co-founded with William “Sandy” Darity in 2008 and served as the associate director until 2014. Himaja Nimmagadda will serve as the associate director for the program.
Howard and WISER welcomed the 1st cohort of students on Thursday via a virtual welcoming ceremony hosted by the Brookings Institution. This partnership aligns with our broader mission to shift the landscape of public policy in terms of who is centered in policy analysis and who conducts policy research.
I want to share with you an action Vanessa Perry, Ph.D., shared during the “Where Do We Go From Here: Action!” panel discussion as part of the 2nd Annual Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) workshop, hosted by the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS). Prof. Perry offered the following as a way to promote diversity and inclusion:
Read the work of marginalized scholars
Assign the work of marginalized scholars to your students, research assistants, and colleagues
Cite the work of marginalized scholars
Engage marginalized scholars – invite them to speak
If you need help remembering, she said remember RACE.
Finally, I found this quote about landscapes.
Landscapes are never constant but change over time, seasonally as well as over longer periods. This can be observed by comparing old photographs with the present. Change is the only constant. What we grew up with and remember from childhood is often changed beyond recognition when we return decades later due to developments, changes in land use, removal of features and other changes. New landscapes are constantly created.
WISER is proud to be a voice in changing the public policy landscape.
Rhonda
