With a shared commitment to advance democracy through research and alliances with civil rights organizations and progressive social movements, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin have partnered to pilot a UCLA Activist-in-Residence Program for ten weeks during the 2017 Winter Quarter: January 4, 2017 - March 31, 2017.

 

Our organizations recognize that the work of social change is demanding. It is our objective to help sustain the activists, artists, and public intellectuals involved in this work through the new UCLA Activist-in-Residence program. We believe this collaboration will help strengthen the infrastructure of social transformation by providing leaders/activists with the time and space to recharge and to reflect upon a complex challenge facing their communities, while also allowing UCLA undergraduate students to develop or strengthen their own commitment to social justice.

 

Specifically, the goals of this program are to:

• Provide artists, community activists and public intellectuals the opportunity to explore or study a complex issue and perhaps to imagine new approaches or scholarship that will improve the lives of people in their community.
• Increase the participation of progressive thought leaders, shapers, and shakers 1) at every level of government 2) in nonprofit organizations and 3) in groups that influence public policy and grassroots organizing.
• Encourage collaborative teaching and learning communities that create new models of public scholarship and engagement for undergraduate students. For example, developing narratives that intersect the personal with political empowerment and link students' lives to broader social processes, thereby "turning the university inside out."

Each Resident Activist will receive a part-time UCLA appointment, a $7500 stipend, and may receive up to $2500 in research support through expense reimbursement (E.g., to host workshops with UCLA students and community residents, to hire a UCLA research assistant, etc.). In addition, the Fellows will receive office space at the Luskin School of Public Affairs, parking and campus access to UCLA Library research facilities.

We are able to offer two residencies for the inaugural 2017 program. Interested individuals may apply for one of the following fellowships:

• The UCLA Asian American Studies Center Fellow: This fellowship is made possible through the Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee Endowment in Social Justice and Immigration Studies. The fellow will focus on addressing social inequality in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities by participating in a variety of events, such as presentations, class visits, workshops, panels, activist projects, video projects, and Center meetings.
• The Irvine Fellow on Urban Life is a residence program funded by the James Irvine Foundation established to bring to the Institute scholar-activists who will undertake social movement research and pedagogy directly concerned with equity at the urban scale -- preferably in one or more of the following themes:
  • Evictions, Displacement and Houselessness in the Global City
  • Wealth, Inequality, and Philanthropy
  • Welfare and Social Protection in the 21st Century
  • Civil and Financial Disobedience
  • Policing and Mass Incarceration

While the Irvine fellow is not required to teach a course, we encourage student engagement through workshops, class visits, community meetings or field research.

Application deadline: Monday, November 14, 2016, 5 pm. Applicants will be notified by December 5, 2016. Please see the attachment for further details regarding the 2017 UCLA Activist-in-Residence Program.