Image: Denisa Gándara has been awarded a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. The dissertation fellowship provides one year of support to individuals working toward completing their dissertation. It is intended to support the final year of writing and defense of the dissertation. Dissertation fellowships are awarded through a national competition administered by the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies on behalf of the Ford Foundation. The award is given to individuals who have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students. “This is a tremendous honor as Denisa is one of 33 fellows chosen from a pool of thousands of nominees from all disciplines,” said Dr. Erik Ness, Gándara’s major professor. “She has clearly distinguished herself as a promising and engaged higher education scholar.” Gándara has worked for college readiness programs such as Gear Up and Upward Bound and experienced policymaking at both the federal level (through an internship with Rep. Roland Gutierrez of Texas in Washington, DC) and at the state level (working with the Senate Higher Education Committee). She currently serves as a graduate student representative for Division J of the American Educational Research Association and was the recipient of the Institute’s 2014 Miller Graduate Fellowship. “I look forward to using the resources and support afforded through the Ford Foundation Fellowship to advance my research on representation and under-representation of various stakeholders in the process of designing performance funding policies at the state level. I am also thrilled to be able to utilize the resources available via the network of Ford scholars to help foster and enhance diversity in higher education through my teaching and scholarship.” She plans to use the award to complete her dissertation research. The Institute of Higher Education is an academic unit of the University of Georgia committed to advancing higher education policy, management and leadership through research, graduate education and outreach. The Institute’s mission encompasses higher education issues at the campus, state, national and international levels. Type of News/Audience: Research
