5. The CGS/Peterson’s Award for Innovation in Promoting an Inclusive Graduate Community

The CGS/Peterson’s Award was used to create an “Inclusive Graduate Community” competitive grant in the Graduate School. Requests for proposals were sent to all faculty members and a carefully selected review team chose the recipients based on the degree of underrepresentation in the discipline and the history of the department’s efforts to recruit women and minorities. Interested faculty members submitted proposals to travel to selected institutions and/or to invite prospective scholars from minority-serving institutions to graduate research forums and other scholarly activities at the University of Memphis. Faculty and peer mentors from the University of Memphis were assigned and used these visits to meet and greet prospective students, complete admissions requirements, and facilitate their induction into graduate school. The University had no similar structure and/or set of procedures to acquire funds to travel (establishing/extending the pipeline) for graduate recruitment, so the Peterson’s award fulfilled an unmet need. The Departments of Philosophy and Mathematical Sciences, the PhD program in Rhetoric, and the doctoral programs in Counseling and Counseling Psychology were selected as the recipients.

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