About the Program

IDEAL Provostial Fellows for Studies in Race and Ethnicity

Stanford announced in June 2020 a new program to bring early-career scholars of race and ethnicity to the university. This ambitious program, which is part of the broader Stanford IDEAL initiative, aims to support the work of early-career researchers, who will lead the next generation of scholarship in race and ethnicity and whose work will point the way forward for reshaping race relations in America.

Cohorts of four to five recent PhD recipients who are among the most promising young scholars in their respective disciplines are selected each year by a committee of Stanford faculty and appointed by the provost to a three-year term. Fellowships may be in any school of the university. Fellows are assigned to departments and schools where they work with a faculty mentor and colleagues, teach one course per year, and expand their research. Fellows also engage with the intellectual life of the program and the broader university community.   

As reported in October 2020, the program has a number of goals. These include a short-term goal of increasing the amount of research and teaching related to race and ethnicity at the university and a longer-term goal of enhancing the diversity of the professoriate. Fellows bring new ideas, methodologies, and perspectives that enrich the community of scholars at Stanford, and they organize an annual conference that engages scholars who are at the forefront of scholarship in the study of race and ethnicity.