Graduate Public Service Fellowship

In partnership with the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, the Haas Center offers the Graduate Public Service (GPS) Fellowship. The program awards fellowships to Stanford graduate students who want to explore and prepare for professorial or other careers in which they will engage in scholar-activism, community-based research or public scholarship. Twenty fellows receive $1,000 stipends per quarter.

The Haas Center for Public Service provides students with opportunities to consider how their community and scholarly interests relate and guides them in exploring the intersection of their professional and community-engaged goals. For graduate students preparing for faculty positions, community engagement can enrich and enhance their teaching, research, and professional service. Individuals pursuing nonacademic jobs can include public interest projects in their professional repertoire.

The GPS Fellowship creates a supportive network among graduate students who share an interest in scholar-activism, community engagement, or public scholarship and provides resources to make this engagement a successful part of their future careers. In 15 seminars throughout the academic year, a multidisciplinary cohort of graduate students meets with disciplinary role models, community partners, and community-engaged scholarship leaders to develop their knowledge of the following:

• community-engaged scholarship practices (e.g., critical pedagogy, participatory action research, community-based research methodology)
• resources for public engagement work in individual disciplines and higher education in general
• strategies for disseminating public scholarship and representing it in academic promotion and tenure processes
• skills for engaging, leading, and mentoring undergraduate students in public service

Related meeting topics include the history of community-engaged scholarship; critical frameworks for approaching community-based research; dissemination strategies for community-engaged scholarship, and the relationship between the academy and community-based work. Faculty and practitioners share perspectives and advice on these issues.

In addition to attending all group seminars, GPS fellows are supported in developing individual work plans that outline contributions to at least one community-based project within the fellows' disciplines. Examples include conducting research for a partner organization; facilitating public service leadership workshops for student organizations; developing programming for community partners, supporting community partner organizations' campaigns, or teaching a session in relevant courses such as those connected to the Public Service Scholars or Education Partnerships programs. Project work plans are developed and approved in collaboration with GPS program staff.

Application requirements

Applications for the 2021-22 fellowship are due May 21, 2021 at 11:59pm.

A complete application includes the following:

• application form
• curriculum vitae
• unofficial transcript
• endorsement from primary graduate advisor(s) – see application for more details on what this entails

For additional information, please contact Joanne Tien at joannetien@stanford.edu.
 

Meet the 2020-21 GPS Fellows