We are thrilled to report that the Freedom Together Foundation has just approved a two-year $200,000 grant to the Center for Engaged Scholarship.

As part of the grant, we have created a Democratic Resilience Fellowship to fund research in support of strengthened democratic institutions. For the 2025-2026 academic year, this position will be held by Orlando Lara, an anthropology student at the University of California, Irvine.

Orlando’s research focuses on precarious citizenship in the Rio Grande Valley and Southeast Texas where government authorities have challenged the validity of birth certificates, especially those signed by midwives. This represents a backdoor mechanism to deny birthright citizenship with obvious consequences for the ability of individuals to participate in democratic governance. Orlando combines ethnographic and archival research to document this precarity.

The funds from Freedom Together will also support our small grant program that funds CES fellows to engage in collaborative projects with grassroots groups. Our aim is to accelerate the back-and-forth flow of ideas between engaged academics and activists working for social, racial, gender, and environmental justice. We see this as a critical pathway for strengthening democratic self-governance.

Andrés Besserer, a 2024-2025 CES fellow, reports that he was first author with faculty member, Robert Smith, of an amicus brief filed with the Constitutional Court in Colombia on a case involving the deportation of a Nigerian family that had sought asylum in Colombia.  One of the daughters had Colombian citizenship, so the deportation order created the potential for family separation.

The brief used social science data from the U.S. to show that family separation, and the creation of a system where children fear the possibility of separation,  is contrary to the best interests of the child—an established principle in Colombian law.

The court cited the amicus brief and granted the parents asylum in Colombia.  The ruling further establishes a precedent that will protect mixed status families in Colombia in future cases.

This is a terrific example of what engaged scholarship can accomplish.  Congratulations to Andrés and Robert.   Well done.   The court’s decision in Spanish can be accessed here.  If only we had a high court in this country that could be swayed by social scientific evidence

The Center for Engaged Scholarship mourns the unexpected death of Michael Burawoy, Berkeley sociologist who mentored many generations of activist scholars.  He was killed on February 3rd by a hit and run driver in Oakland.   Michael had retired from teaching the previous Spring, and there was much expectation about the new works he would produce when freed of departmental responsibilities.

Michael was a friend of the Center from the start; he provided valuable advice as we were first exploring the idea.  He also reviewed applications for our first nine cohorts, providing applicants with valuable feedback.  Michael had developed a powerful argument for “public sociology” that was showcased in the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in 2004 under his presidency.  The case for public sociology helped inspire the creation of the Center.  We simply took the further step of arguing that scholars in other disciplines could also prioritize research that identified pressing social problems and proposed possible solutions that would push society in better directions.

A series of tributes to Michael are available here.

We are thrilled to announce that CES was just awarded a 3-year grant from the Mellon Foundation for $558,000 to continue pursuing our vision of building a new generation of engaged scholars. Such a substantial amount will allow us to increase the number of fellowships we provide from 7 to 12.  We have also revised our eligibility criteria to include more fields in the humanities.

Our application is currently open and linked on our website. The deadline is December 1, 2024. We welcome applications from Ph.D. students from social sciences and humanities fields who are doing engaged research and are on track to be completing their dissertation during the 2025-26 academic year. 

While the Mellon grant is the largest we have ever received, we are still very much in need of donations from individuals. As a 501c3 nonprofit, we must show “public support” by amassing significant revenue from small and medium sized donations. Due to this rule, individual contributions, both small and large, are vitally important. Here is a link to donate and support our mission toward becoming a more democratic, more egalitarian, and more environmentally sustainable society.

We are grateful to all the fellows, reviewers, funders, and others who have helped us get to this point. Watch this spot for new initiatives we hope to launch over the next year. 

We are tremendously proud of the fellows who recently completed their CES fellowship. All have exciting plans for next year and beyond.

• Rishi Awatramani will be starting a post-doctoral position at the Equity Research Institute at USC, which is Manuel Pastor’s institute, called the “Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate.” The mission of the institute is to support deepening knowledge of the ways civil society institutions and grassroots actors are transforming the economic and social landscape of the 21st Century.
• Sadie Bergen has a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Columbia Medical Center as a full-time Research Associate in the Division of Bioethics, working on an NIH-funded qualitative study examining equity and justice in genomics research.
• Caitlin Curry will be starting a position as an Assistant Professor of Criminology at Hamline University this fall. They also have a forthcoming publication in Law and Social Inquiry, which will be released in a 2025 issue.
• Venus Green was selected as the 2024-2026 Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow at Williams College. This fellowship, honoring Gaius Bolin’s legacy, is a two-year residency which allows time for dissertation work as well as teaching.

• Walker Kahn has accepted a two-year postdoctoral position at University of Buffalo’s Baldy Center on Law and Social Policy. This is an ideal site for his ongoing research, since Buffalo, NY is a hub of the U.S. debt collection industry.

• Katherine Maldonado has secured a UC chancellor post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA, and a tenure track position at the University of Utah in Sociology.

• Joseph van der Naald will be supported by the American Sociological Association Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant for the academic year 2024-2025.

Congratulations all!