Arizona State University Associate Professor Natalie Diaz has been named the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University.

The endowed chair provides funds for an ASU professor in the Department of English who is “a major poet and rising star in the field of American poetry” to use for research, travel, and other scholarly activities. The money also supports graduate research assistantships to strengthen student recruitment and the teaching and learning of poetry. Natalie Diaz is the new holder of the Marshall endowed chair in poetry at ASU, which provides funds for a professor in the Department of English who is “a major poet and rising star in the field of American poetry” to use for research, travel and other scholarly activities. Diaz was also recently named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Photo courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Download Full Image

“Natalie Diaz was, even before I came to ASU, one of my favorite poets,” said Jeffrey Cohen, dean of humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, of which the Department of English is an academic unit. “Her works ‘Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation’ and ‘It Was the Animals’ have frequently visited my classroom (and one is in my book project in progress).

“The Marshall family wanted to honor through the endowment the best in contemporary poetry,” Cohen continued, “so I cannot imagine a better choice than Professor Diaz.”

The Marshall Chair is named in honor of Maxine Besser Marshall (Sociology '76) and Jonathan Marshall, former newspaper publishers and prominent Valley philanthropists.

“It is exciting to imagine how we might continue the good work and energy of Maxine and John Marshall here at ASU and within the smaller and larger poetry communities of Arizona,” Diaz said. “Poetry, like any good story, like any generous and well-intentioned language, has the power to change a single moment as well as lift and sustain a movement. Arizona has a long history of language and poetry, from our indigenous languages, to Spanish, to the many different languages our guests and neighbors and families bring into our lexicons.

“It is an honor and a joy to help envision and enact the next moments we all might come together — across a page, a room, our campus or our state — to share our stories and our poetries and how we all might be better for it.”

The Marshalls created the fund in 2001, and the first Marshall Chair — poet and translator Cynthia Hogue — assumed the role in 2003. Professor Hogue held the position until her retirement from ASU in December 2017.

“That inspiring and timely notion of giving forward — Emily Dickinson called it ‘dowering,’ the gift without conditions — surely characterizes Maxine and her beloved husband, Jonathan, in all they did and gave,” wrote Hogue in a 2013 newsletter article about the philanthropically minded couple. Maxine and Jonathan also funded the Marshall Distinguished Lecture Series, an annual College of Liberal Arts and Sciences event that “brings to ASU nationally known scholars concerned with promoting culture through the humanities and a better understanding of the problems of democracy.”

Diaz teaches in English’s creative writing program. Earlier this month, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, known informally as a “genius grant.” The fellowship is a prestigious honor, a recognition of exceptional creativity, and it is not, the foundation emphasizes, a lifetime achievement award but instead a search for people on the verge of a great discovery or a game-changing idea.

Born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, Diaz is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Her first poetry collection, "When My Brother Was an Aztec," was published to critical acclaim by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. Her next collection, “Postcolonial Love Poem,” is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2020. She is a Lannan Literary Fellow and a Native Arts Council Foundation Artist Fellow. She was awarded a Bread Loaf Fellowship, the Holmes National Poetry Prize, a Hodder Fellowship and a PEN/Civitella Ranieri Foundation Residency, as well as being awarded a U.S. Artists Ford Fellowship.

In addition to being renowned on the page, Diaz is known for her Mohave language activism. She is also a frequent collaborator with other artists and poets. She wrote, curated and led an exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City titled “Words for Water: Stories and Songs of Strength by Native Women” that featured a collective of indigenous female poets, writers and musicians exploring the power of language, story and song in the fight for environmental and cultural justice.

Diaz is also the founder of archiTEXTS, a program that facilitates conversations and collaborations between people who value poetry, literature and story. In November 2017, archiTEXTS held an event at ASU called “Legacies: A Conversation With Sandra Cisneros, Rita Dove and Joy Harjo,” in which the authors discussed their personal journeys through the American literary landscape.

The chair appointment is for a period of five years, with a possibility of renewal.

A celebration of Diaz’s accomplishments and naming as Marshall Chair will take place Feb. 21, 2019. More details are forthcoming.

Melanie Katzman was born curious and said she always planned to study psychology.

During her undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania, Katzman worked in a lab focused on obesity and stumbled on the topic of night eating. ASU alumna Melanie Katzman is the founder and president of Katzman Consulting, which has a team of psychologists who consult in the workplace. Download Full Image

“Attached to that was something that later became known as bulimia, but at the time it was just diagnosed … When people now hear about bulimia it sounds so common, but at the time no one knew that there were women who were eating and vomiting in secret. It was a new diagnosis, and I wanted to understand why people did that,” she said.

With the desire to research a relatively unknown topic, Katzman said she sought to study with someone that was interested and excited by her ideas.

That somebody was Sharlene Wolchik, who at the time had just been hired by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as a new professor in the Department of Psychology, she said. The decision to attend ASU for her master’s and doctoral degrees was an easy one.

“The university had faculty, money and they had people that believed in me, so it was a good package,” she said.

Katzman and her team went on to conduct the first prevalent study on bulimia and received letters from women written on the research papers asking for help and answers.

“By the time I left ASU, I had documented there was a problem, written a treatment manual for professionals, written a treatment manual for patients and also gotten involved with advocacy work — talking to the media and talking with the government — because we were holding data that no one else had,” she said.

To current and future students, Katzman warns against getting stuck in one discipline. While she worked hard as a student, she also took time to enjoy what Arizona as a state has to offer.

“Make sure you’re taking classes and talking to people way outside your comfort zone. I learned so much being out with colleagues who were doing completely different things. I would go out to the river and collect samples of plant life, I would help my friends with tree rings, I went with one of my friends who was a volcanologist to Hawaii. Learn from the people around you,” she said.

Post-graduation, Katzman continued studying eating disorders in other parts of the world, including Hong Kong, where she lived for several years.

“I had gone from studying the development of eating disorders in America to looking at how eating disorders existed in places that didn’t have Madison Avenue advertising pressures. There was a view that people with eating disorders were vain and that it was some kind of rich girl’s illness. I became very interested in documenting eating disorders where it was much more evident that this wasn’t a reaction just to advertising, that this was actually a means of coping and reacting during social change,” she said.

As Katzman’s research progressed, so did her opportunities. A second specialization emerged, and Katzman began consulting to companies on diversity and women in leadership roles.

Today, she is the founder and president of Katzman Consulting, which has a team of psychologists who consult in the workplace.

Katzman said she couldn’t have imagined her career path transitioning from eating disorders to a business and strategic role but always anticipated her career would focus on impact.

“Throughout my career, I’ve always looked for ways to take what I’m learning in the clinical arena or laboratory and bring it out for more popular consumption,” she said. “There’s a lot of discussion about whether people have jobs that have meaning. I know my job has meaning. I see the change I can make in people’s lives. It’s hugely rewarding.”

A highly acclaimed study program in Prato, Italy, has helped expand the profile and prestige of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. 

The program was launched through a partnership with Monash Law School of Melbourne, Australia, which has a campus in Prato. Diana Bowman, who oversees the program as ASU Law’s associate dean for international engagement, says its benefits are twofold. Students in the 2018 Prato Study Program. Download Full Image

“One, the program provides an amazing opportunity for personal growth,” she said. “Our students stay in Italy for a minimum period of four weeks and must live as if they were a local. This provides them with an opportunity to appreciate and embrace the culture, the language and the rich history of a country. Two, our students are provided with an opportunity to study with leading scholars and practitioners from around the world that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to, while simultaneously building relationships and networks with other law students from around the world.”

For second-year student Abbey Hawthorne, the program played a big role in her decision to apply to ASU Law.

“Because I was interested in international law, the Prato program was part of what sold me on coming here,” she said. “It was really important to me to know that ASU Law valued international law and had a focused program and study-abroad opportunities.”

Students pay ASU tuition and earn ASU credits for the courses, which are offered in four-week blocks. The classes — taught in English — cover such topics as international refugee law, international criminal justice, comparative European legal systems, sovereignty and globalization and EU external relations.

Bowman says the experience allows students to build a global network of colleagues that can serve as an invaluable resource throughout their career. 

“The Prato programs brings law students from, for example, Australia, the U.K., France and Italy together in a classroom, and over the course of four weeks, studying together, taking meals together and going on weekend expeditions provides them with a phenomenal opportunity to build long-lasting international friendships and networks,” she said. “That’s invaluable. Just imagine if when out in practice, (one faces) a matter that pertains to Frank’s Law (a new health care law Scotland will implement in April). Rather than having to start from scratch, that person can potentially reach out to one of their colleagues from Prato and ask for assistance in solving the complex legal issue in front of them.”

Hawthorne is seeking a career in international alternative dispute resolution, so the global and European focus of the curriculum appealed to her.

“That was exciting to me to get credits that are fully recognized here, but being able to see things from a different perspective,” she said. “For example, when I was there, I had a French professor who taught at a university in Paris, and I was taking an EU external relations class. Learning that from somebody who is from the EU and was educated in the EU and works with the EU on a daily basis was a fantastic opportunity.” 

The class included topical assignments involving the EU, such as a mock “Brexit” negotiation, which offered unique insights into the issue.

“From the U.S., it’s very arms-length,” Hawthorne said. “But being in Italy with a French professor and classmates who are from the EU, as well as other places around the world, I felt like I was able to dive deeper into the subject matter. I felt I had a better understanding of the issues compared to if I had taken the class in the U.S.”

The program includes a rotating staff of instructors which includes former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods. Bowman said Woods has been involved with the program for a number of years.

“For somebody of Grant’s caliber, putting his life on hold for four weeks is a serious commitment both personally and professionally. The fact that Grant has been willing to do this for a number of years now, and will be doing so once again in June 2019, speaks to how special the program is,” Bowman said. “Grant has been an amazing ambassador for the program and ASU Law in general, and based on my discussions with him, he appreciates the discussions and the debates that take place in the classroom as much as his students.”

Law school students focused on externships may be fearful of the time commitment. But Hawthorne said the relatively short schedule leaves plenty of opportunity for both.

“I was able to do the Prato program and do an externship, so I didn’t have to choose,” she said. “And I had wonderful experiences with both.” 

Female action heroes. Everyman poet-musicians. Fake news. Publishing YA lit. Saving the planet. Writing theft. A history of English.

These are literally (really, literally) just a few of the topics covered in the spring 2019 Department of English course offerings. Taught by award-winning faculty from myriad specialties, the courses cross disciplinary boundaries and are designed to reach students where they are. Tupac Shakur's legacy is truly worldwide; graffiti with his likeness appears in Serbia. ASU's Stacey Moran is teaching a film and media studies course on "The Legacy of Tupac Shakur in Film and Music" this spring. Photo courtesy Чигот on Wikimedia Commons under CC 4.0 Download Full Image

We’ll list a few of the standout choices here, but there are even more options in the ASU class schedule (search by ENG, FMS, APL, or LIN prefixes); the course list includes online offerings as well.

1. FMS 394 — The Legacy of Tupac Shakur in Film and Music

A famous poet said, “Every day, I’m standing outside trying to sing my way in”? But it wasn't Maya Angelou or Rilke or Rumi.

The sage was none other than musician Tupac Shakur, known by his stage name 2Pac, who, according to ASU’s Stacey Moran, “has been hailed not only as a rapper, but also as an actor, an activist, a thug, a poet, a rebel and a visionary.”

Moran wants to make sure that you know just how much of an impact 2Pac made on popular culture. Her spring 2019 film and media studies course The Legacy of Tupac Shakur in Film and Music will engage students in dialogue about the “deeply rooted values found in 2Pac's work as they connect to the broader historical, social and political issues in contemporary American life.”

“Media, especially music and film, can be powerful tools for social justice,” said Moran, a lecturer in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts’ School of Arts, Media and Engineering. “Because 2Pac's work speaks to a very broad audience and provides a rich framework for addressing a number of issues that Americans face, a course on 2Pac (seems) to be able to accomplish it all.”

If you register: The Legacy of Tupac Shakur in Film and Music (class #26270) meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. on ASU’s Tempe campus.

2. ENG 461 – Female Action Hero

She’s definitely not a damsel in distress; she’s doing the rescuing. The role of the female hero has evolved over the years in literature and culture at large. Melissa Free’s spring 2019 Female Action Hero course will question: What were her roots? To what is she a response? What forms does she take? How has she evolved? And why, at last, has she begun to flourish? As a student, you’ll journey through a diverse catalog of characters, genres and narratives to understand the social, historical and cultural contexts of the female action hero.

Throughout the course you’ll study warriors, detectives and superheroes who have made the female action hero an icon in literature and on screen. Free brings her own interests and history to the course and its characters, drawing from formative literary encounters with leading females: “I realized that my early exposure to characters like Nancy Drew and the Bionic Woman, followed later by the likes of Ripley and Buffy, had been the shadow texts of my more formal feminist education.”

Free expresses her excitement about learning from her students as well. “I look forward to seeing what this new group will bring to the classroom, just as I look forward to introducing them to female action heroes they may not have previously encountered, from a variety of ethnic and national backgrounds, with a wide range of characteristics and motivations.”  

If you register: Female Action Hero (class #29727) meets Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:05 to 4:20 p.m. on ASU’s Tempe campus. 

3. ENG 494 – Analyzing Rhetoric: Fake News & Alternative Facts

With satire, hoaxes, misinformation, counterfeit news stories and propaganda-disguised-as-real-news all over our social media timelines and feeds, how do we know what information we can trust?

Maureen Daly Goggin, a professor of English in writing, rhetorics and literacies, says it’s not always easy to discern fact from fiction, but one way to start is by viewing all "news" with a healthy dose of skepticism. “We can think of (information as) moving along a continuum from truth to an ambivalence to truth to mainly falsehoods to outright lies.”

Goggin’s spring 2019 course, Rhetorical Analysis: Fake News and Alternative Facts aims to combat the information challenges that we face today. You’ll study the use, meaning and etymology of the terms: post-truth, fake news, and bulls--t, while gaining skills on how to determine fact from fiction to save your credibility as a reader and writer.

Counterfeit news has existed since ancient times, but the rise in social media and internet use during today’s technological age has given momentum to false information. With no signs of fake news disappearing soon, it’s important to be able to analyze the messages and validity of sources and news in our studies and careers.

If you register: Rhetorical Analysis: Fake News and Alternative Facts (class #24931) will meet Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:05 to 4:20 p.m. on ASU’s Tempe campus.

4. ENG 471 – Literature for Young Adults

If you’re looking for an entry into the young adult literature publishing world, look no further than the spring 2019 Literature for Young Adults course.

The class is for students who want to participate in the YA literature world, whether as teachers, authors or publishing industry professionals. Students read books of their choosing, create websites about their favorite books and visit face-to-face with famous authors and publishing industry marketing heads. This can serve as a lead-in to an internship helping a local young adult author with book launches, website updates, publicity and beta reading.

Professor of English James Blasingame, an award-winning teacher and researcher in YA lit, is the instructor for the course. “As executive director of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, I spend most of my time working with authors, publishers, and marketers, but also with teachers and aspiring authors,” said Blasingame. “This course is the starting line! Famous, successful authors have come through this class, as well as one New York Times best-seller senior editor.

“We have steampunk day, zombie day, vampire day and graphic novel day. Grapple with issues such as censorship, school violence, advocating for LGBTQ books and earn extra credit for working at El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros.”

If you register: Literature for Young Adults (class #24925) will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from noon to 1:15 p.m. (Note that this class is also offered online as an iCourse during Session A (class #21150).

5. ENG 367 – Environmental Issues in Literature & Film: Classic Texts & Contemporary Trends

It’s not often that a knight visits ASU. But that’s the plan for the spring 2019 English course, Environmental Issues in Literature and Film where Sir Jonathan Bate, professor of English and provost of Worcester College, University of Oxford, U.K., will be a guest lecturer. (Bate was knighted in 2015 for “services to literary scholarship and higher education.”)

ASU Professor of English Mark Lussier, the main instructor for the course, points to work by ASU Global Institute of Sustainability director Gary Dirks as a catalyst for Bate’s visit and for the course focus. “(Dirks) quite often says that only the humanities can save the planet at this late-stage of the Anthropocene, the current geological era when human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

“Sir Jonathan Bate, one of the leading environmental humanities scholars in the U.K., shares this view and is deeply engaged in conceiving and implementing humanities projects designed to pursue, even achieve, this elusive and lofty goal.”

The team-taught course combines a revaluation of landmark works that helped define ecological thought (for example, Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” and Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”) with exploration of emerging forms and theoretical models. To Lussier, the topic is personal and comes none-too-soon: “Hopefully, this call to action will inspire members of the university community to grapple with the ‘wicked problems’ embedded within our current crises, moving from activism to action in the process.”

If you register: Environmental Issues in Literature & Film (class #21429) will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. on ASU’s Tempe campus.

6. ENG 494 – Genre Fusions: Invention & Robbery in the New Poetic Prose

In this course, stealing will be encouraged. Students in poet Sally Ball's spring 2019 Genre Fusions will “explore the evolving territory often identified as hybrid: writing that is neither what we expect of nonfiction or of poetry — or even of ‘prose poems’ (a term that now seems almost quaint!) — a form that’s breaking new ground.”

Contemporary writers are layering text over images, incorporating news headlines and historical documents, playing with grammar and structure and “borrowing” from other well-known poems and stories. One thing you won’t find: anything in the “roses are red” formula. “Poetry looks so little like it looked when our presumptions about it hardened into the American consciousness,” said Ball, an associate professor of English. “It mostly hasn’t rhymed for over a century!”

As textbooks, the course will include work like Harmony Holiday’s “Hollywood Forever,” which employs photographs, jazz lyrics and advertisements; Maggie Nelson’s “Jane: A Murder,” a collage of poetry, prose, dream-accounts and documentary sources about an unsolved homicide; and Tyehimba Jess’s “Olio,” a blend of sonnet, song and narrative that documents the lives of African-American performers.

The effect of these mash-ups, said Ball, “is the opposite of the numbing accumulations of social media … instead, we are suddenly in a world boldly intensified, our capacity to feel alongside someone else awakened and renewed.”

If you register: Genre Fusions (class #29592) will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 to 2:45 p.m. on ASU’s Tempe campus.

7. LIN 517 – History of the English Language

Did you know that several English words beginning with the letters “a-l” come originally from Arabic (sometimes by way of Spanish)? OK, sure, maybe you knew that about "algorithm" and "algebra" — but what about "alfalfa?"

While the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t seem like titillating reading, with it you can make these kinds of mind-blowing discoveries. Students in Elly van Gelderen's spring History of the English Language course will use the OED in this manner frequently. But you won’t just consult dictionaries; van Gelderen believes that revisiting original manuscripts can help provide insight about language change and meaning. “We’ll cover texts from Alfred and Aelfric, from the Exeter Book, the Lindisfarne Glosses, the Peterborough Chronicle, Seinte Katerine and many others, using online manuscript images,” said van Gelderen, a Regents’ Professor of English in linguistics who literally wrote the book on this topic. “Looking at manuscripts provides a completely different window on the older English sentence.”

Don’t be intimidated by this graduate-level linguistics course. The material, as van Gelderen presents it, is quite accessible — especially for future educators and those enrolled in 4+1 programs. “The course explains the scripts, each word and its history and the syntax of every sentence,” van Gelderen said. “It is especially designed for graduate students who may want to teach the history of English at a college level.”

If you register: History of the English Language (class #29434) will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 until 11:45 a.m. on ASU’s Tempe campus.

If this list didn’t quite match your expectations, visit the ASU Class Search page to find more courses in creative writing, film and media studies, English education, linguistics and applied linguistics, literature and writing, rhetorics and literacies.

Written by Kristen LaRue-Sandler, Mayra Vasquez-Chavez and Chris Wheeler.

Image information: ABC Television photo of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman (public domain image from Wikimedia Commons); The Little Golden Book of #AlternativeFacts (by Sylvar on Flickr under CC 2.0); Steampunk Day in Jim Blasingame’s spring 2013 Literature for Young Adults class (ASU photo); Dawn in the Anthropocene (by Cugerbrant on Wikimedia Commons under CC 4.0); The Rout of Rapid Shallow Respiration (Visual-Text Poem ii.) (by Derrick Tyson on Flickr under CC 2.0); and Lindisfarne Gospels Initial (by manuscript_nerd on Flickr under CC 2.0).

In April 2019, ASU will celebrate indigenous culture with the ASU Pow Wow and the premiere of a new theatrical experience, "Native Nation," both of which will honor spiritual legacy and be an opportunity to share traditions and honor the past as well as celebrate the future. American Indian culture continues to play an important role in the development of the Americas and a significant role in Arizona. 

“ASU’s commitment to indigenous communities, nations, and our students, staff and faculty is clear," said Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy (Lumbee), President’s Professor, senior adviser to ASU President Michael Crow and director of the Center for Indian Education. "We are here to create futures of their own making and do so with a connection to place. Both the ASU Pow Wow and 'Native Nation' allow us to assert our commitment to the future and to place. We continue to strive to be an institution where Indigenous peoples see themselves as mattering.”   Kinsale Hueston performs in "Urban Rez." Photo by Kevin Michael Campbell Download Full Image

ASU Pow Wow to be first cultural festival at the new Sun Devil Stadium

April 12–14, 2019

American Indian dancers and singing groups from across the United States and Canada will be featured at this social gathering that reinforces the common bond and spirituality existing between individuals from many North American nations through singing and dancing. The cultural diffusion that takes place at the ASU Pow Wow helps bridge existing gaps in any misunderstanding of tradition and respect. The Pow Wow at Arizona State University is a culmination of American Indian beliefs and traditions that inspire, communicate and support American Indian culture. American Indians represent an increasing percentage of the student population at ASU and with pride seek academic and cultural enrichment by maintaining and sharing heritage and traditions with the community. 

Five age groups — consisting of senior men and women, adult men and women, teen boys and girls, junior boys and girls, and tiny tot boys and girls — will all be dancing and competing in different dance categories. The ASU Pow Wow will feature various American Indian arts and crafts vendors from throughout the United States and Canada. This series of annual pow wows presented by the ASU Pow Wow Committee is specifically designed to preserve the inter-tribal cultural heritage of the American Indian students at ASU and to enrich and demonstrate the cultural diversity of the ASU community and surrounding population. 

A young girl dances at the 32nd annual Pow Wow at ASU.

New play 'Native Nation' to be presented at Steele Indian School Park

April 27–28, 2019

ASU Gammage, in partnership with Cornerstone Theater Company, will present "Native Nation," written by Larissa FastHorse and directed by Michael John Garcés, at Steele Indian School Park at 2 and 7 p.m. April 27–28. This is an indigenous theatrical experience for the whole family with the original people of this land to see the world through their eyes. Part marketplace, cultural performance, community gathering and theater, "Native Nation" is a new experience that will forever change the way you see this land.

“We are so excited to welcome the entire community in April to celebrate and honor indigenous culture with these two incredible events at ASU," said Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, ASU vice president for cultural affairs. "With the mission of connecting communities, ASU Cultural Affairs believes cultural events facilitate building significant bonds of respect between communities, and no connection is more important than with the American Indian community.” 

Tickets for all events will be for sale on Ticketmaster. 

In 1954, a group of 32 social scientists led by Kenneth B. Clark, an African-American psychologist, filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court summarizing the extant research — including some of Clark's — on the impact that segregation had on children.

The detrimental effect described in this brief was cited by the Supreme Court as one of the considerations that led to the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling. In this decision, the Supreme Court overturned the almost-60-year-old “separate but equal” doctrine that allowed public facilities, including schools, to be racially segregated. This ruling led to the beginning of the school desegregation process in the U.S. and was an important step in the civil rights movement. Edwin Vasquez with 2018 SUPER fellows. Download Full Image

The role that Clark and his fellow researchers played in supporting the school desegregation process is an example of how research and science have an important role in helping humanity move forward. Such improvements are the result of the work of many researchers who have worked tirelessly throughout the years to improve our understanding of the world around us. 

However, when you ask undergraduate students to share their ideas around research, many of them tend to associate it with boring, repetitive work that can only be done well by very few people, and that it is usually done in a lab or in front of a computer with little connection to the world at large. It comes as no surprise then that few undergraduates are interested in exploring research as potential careers.

This attitude can be especially salient for students from underrepresented populations, who rarely see people like them leading research studies, creating the sense that a career in research might not be a professional fit for them. These ideas could drive potential Kenneth B. Clarks out of the research field. As was the case in the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, talented, underrepresented students interested in improving the lives of their fellow humans — and with the skills and drive to make it happen — can bring new experiences and perspectives and contribute novel and effective ideas to solve social and community problems.

Recognizing this enormous amount of untapped potential, Richard Fabes, director of ASU’s T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, formed a committee two years ago to identify strategies that would enhance access and opportunities for Sanford School students from diverse backgrounds to become involved in research within the social sciences.

Part of the Diversity and Inclusion Science Initiative, SUPER was structured around three pillars: research, career and diversity.

“The intent of this program is to support underrepresented students in entering the research pipeline,” Fabes said.

To meet this goal, the Sanford School focused the program on providing comprehensive support for SUPER fellows that allowed them to get a good taste of the research experience.

The program included structured learning opportunities directed and facilitated by a range of Sanford School faculty, staff, postdoctoral research fellows and graduate students who were thoughtfully selected to ensure that SUPER fellows had ample opportunities to engage with researchers who more closely resembled them or who are conducting research that matched the fellows’ broad interests and had a direct connection with the community. The school also provided fellows with a stipend for their 20-hours-a-week participation in the program in an effort to remove any financial barriers that could have obstructed fellows’ engagement with the program.