Department of Political Science

Research Symposium showcases UCR student scholars

kelvin — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 17:23:55 +0000

Research Symposium showcases UCR student scholars kelvin Tue, 10/10/2023 - 10:23 More Press Releases Alejandra Prado, Student Writer/CHASS Marketing and Communications October 10, 2023

On Friday, Aug. 18, more than 60 UCR students gathered at the Alumni and Visitors Center for the 2023 APRO Summer Research Symposium to present their research findings, engage in discussions with mentors and peers, and partake in a daylong celebration of their participation and work in the program.

It was the culmination of the Mentoring Summer Research Internship Program (MSRIP), an eight-week paid, intensive program designed to equip UCR undergraduate students with diverse perspectives for success in graduate study. It offers participants a chance to share their discoveries, network with peers and mentors, and refine their presentation skills, with interns also receiving a stipend of $4500.

In the program, interns pair up with a faculty mentor to work on a research project. Overall, the MSRIP program provides ample opportunities for CHASS students and faculty to engage in cutting-edge research across various fields and includes writing workshops led by CHASS graduate students.

“As a fellow undergraduate researcher working in the honors program, I wanted to continue that work within MSRIP and get a multi-disciplinary kind of perspective,” said Emmanuel Aguilar-Ampudia, a fourth-year political science student and MSRIP intern.

Aguilar’s research covered topics of political science and sociology and focused on messaging strategies within social movement campaigns at UCR. During his time at MSRIP, Aguilar worked with faculty mentors Dr. Tanya Nieri, a professor in the Department of Sociology, and Dr. Daniel Biggers, from the Department of Political Science.

“I feel like I got a lot of value from the program,” Aguilar said. He was able to conduct a literature review and gain depths of understanding in his study throughout his experience working with his mentors and internship.

The Research Symposium on Aug. 18 marked the end of the MSRIP program and provided a platform for these aspiring scholars to present their findings to fellow participants, mentors, and staff. In the morning, students participated in both poster and oral presentations, discussing their research topics and opening up time for questions by peers and judges, followed by an awards ceremony and dinner.

The symposium showcased a variety of research projects, some of which were led by CHASS faculty with CHASS undergraduate students as MSRIP interns. Research topics presented at the symposium covered a wide range of disciplines including psychology, sociology, and English.

“At the end of the day, I have grown from week one to week eight and am more comfortable when it comes down to certain research methods, how to talk about them, and how to reach your audience which is something that the Research Symposium prepares you for when presenting,” Aguilar said.

“One of the primary goals of MSRIP is to help prepare students for graduate study,” said Laura Mcgeehan, Director of Academic Preparation, Recruitment & Outreach Presenting for the Graduate Division at UCR. “One’s own research is a key task in graduate school, so the Research Symposium gives the students a chance to build these skills.”

The symposium’s significance goes beyond showcasing research; It's a space for refining crucial skills. According to Mcgeehan, the Research Symposium “is an opportunity for them to step back from the details of day-to-day research work and grapple with the big questions [such as] what is my research for, what does it answer…”

“Plus, the symposium is a space where students can ask and answer questions of each other and faculty mentors, and get valuable feedback on their work and their presentations,” Mcgeehan said.

Third-year sociology student Denilson Tecun de Leon also participated in the MSRIP program and presented his research at the symposium which included a collaboration with English professor Richard Rodríguez. Tecun’s topic focused on the vital role of Undocumented Student Centers in providing resources and support to undocumented students for success in higher education.

“It has been a great opportunity for me to grow as a scholar but also as a person to believe more in myself,” Tecun said.

MSRIP and the Research Symposium is Tecun’s first hands-on experience in conducting research and an opportunity to expand on his scholarly interests in higher education for undocumented students.

“This program can really help you out if you set your mind to it,” Tecun said.

For students interested in learning more about MSRIP and the Research Symposium, please visit apro.ucr.edu/undergrad/msrip.

For more information about the 2023 MSRIP Summer Program and this year’s Research Symposium, please visit apro.ucr.edu/msrip-summer-2023.

FEATURED PHOTO. More than 60 students participated in this year's Mentoring Summer Research Internship Program (MSRIP).

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Department of Political Science

Department of Sociology

Message from the Office of the Dean: Ezadeen Issak

kelvin — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 19:41:44 +0000

Message from the Office of the Dean: Ezadeen Issak kelvin Thu, 08/17/2023 - 12:41 More Messages & Announcements August 17, 2023

Dear Colleagues,

It is with deep sadness that I bring you news that student Ezadeen Issak, a Political Science major, has passed away. It is never easy to lose one of our own and the loss is felt deeply throughout our community. Our hearts go out to those who were closest to Ezadeen, especially to his friends, colleagues, and mentors in the Political Science Department.

Our campus stands ready to support one another in this loss. We encourage all of you who are affected by Ezadeen’s passing and in need of emotional support to contact campus resources. For student support, mental health therapists are available for crisis counseling and support at Counseling and Psychological Services (951-827-5531) 24 hours daily. In addition, Case Managers (951-827-5000) can help students make connections to university resources in difficult times. The Dean of Students Christine.Mata@ucr.edu is always here to help in addition to Director of the Case Management office Laurie.lee@ucr.edu.

I also want to acknowledge that this is hard on faculty and staff and would remind you to take the time for some appropriate self-care. I am sharing the link to the Faculty Staff Assistance Program, a free resource for you and your colleagues.

Sincerely,

Laurie Lee
Director
UCR Case Management Office

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Message from the Office of the Dean

Department of Political Science

Michigan for summer school

kelvin — Thu, 14 May 2020 18:32:56 +0000

Michigan for summer school kelvin Thu, 05/14/2020 - 11:32 More Press Releases Hannah Croft, Student Writer/CHASS Marketing and Communications May 14, 2020

UC Riverside Political Science major Samir Al-Alami spent his summer break in Michigan.

Last June, the outgoing senior began a seven-week fellowship for the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

With an acceptance rate of approximately one in six students, the fellowship’s prestigious program offers students direct access to networks, resources, and other crucial support programs inaccessible to many students.

“I attended classes, workshops, and programs,” Al-Alami said. “I completed homework assignments, like papers or policy memos, and even took periodic quizzes. We also had a final culmination project at the end of our time as fellows, where we were assigned to tackle one policy issue. Fellows were equipped with the tools and the networks for personal, professional, and academic growth, which will assist our future careers in public service.”

The program places fellows from across the country at one of five public policy schools: Carnegie Mellon University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Minnesota, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan. Al-Alami completed his work alongside 23 other fellows, all incoming seniors from across the United States.

“I...encourage more people to apply to this fellowship,” Al-Alami said. “We’re a leading campus in diversity and have so many first-generation students like me who are sons and daughters of immigrants, which is precisely the demographic this fellowship promotes. I have been happy to represent a school that is doing so much for so many, and have been able to share my experiences from CHASS with the other fellows while promoting how much this campus means to me.”

Al-Alami hopes his fellowship experience will help his career post-graduation.

“This program complimented my major perfectly,” Al-Alami said. “This fellowship gave me the skills and networks I needed to apply for future fellowships, such as the Fulbright Grant in my native country of Jordan. It also gave me future career opportunities in public policy, which I will use to look for a job on Capitol Hill to work on issues pertaining to the Middle East, education policy, or immigration policy.”

Currently, Al-Alami’s post-graduation plans remain uncertain. Due to delayed consideration because of COVID-19, he is still waiting to hear back from UC-Riverside’s Center For Social Innovation Nonprofit Fellowship Program and from the Western Riverside Council of Governments fellowship but is hopeful for what the future will bring.

FEATURED PHOTO. Photos courtesy of Samir Al-Alami.
Al-Alami (red), pictured alongside three other attending Political Science/Public Policy students.

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College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Loveridge Summer Fellowship Program prepares UCR students for Sacramento

kelvin — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 22:12:10 +0000

Loveridge Summer Fellowship Program prepares UCR students for Sacramento kelvin Thu, 02/06/2020 - 14:12 More Press Releases Melissa Sagun, Student Writer/CHASS Marketing & Communications February 06, 2020

Summer is a time for most students to slow down, take a vacation, or even enroll in a couple of summer classes. But UC Riverside Political Science Professor Ronald O. Loveridge believes the best way to spend the summer is gaining internship experience. That was exactly how I spent my 2019 summer - learning new skills, gaining professional development, and building my network as a UC Riverside Loveridge Fellow in Sacramento.

Established in 2015, Loveridge's Summer Fellowship Program awards rising seniors and recent graduates the opportunity to work as full-time interns in the state capital of Sacramento. For ten weeks, each candidate is placed in a major political office relating to government and policy-making. The program provides political science and public policy students the exposure to the inner-workings and functions of state politics. Each Fellow receives a stipend of $3,000 to cover the living expenses in Sacramento.

As a first-generation student, I never thought I would come across a life-changing opportunity like this. Because of my interests in state politics and previous internship experience, Loveridge placed me in the Office of Assemblymember Jose Medina. He serves as Chair of the Higher Education Committee and represents California’s 61st Assembly District, which consists of Riverside, Moreno Valley, Perris, and Mead Valley.

My summer in Sacramento became a routine. Every day I would take the bus downtown, walk through the corridors of the capitol building, work in our legislative office, network with individuals through coffee meetings, and attend mixers after work with others in my cohort. It has been a remarkable experience connecting with alumni who were former Loveridge interns and fellows.

As the Deputy Director of the Inland Center for Sustainable Development and a former mayor of Riverside, Loveridge is a highly regarded regional, state, and national leader. He is known for building a massive network of notable alumni and designed the fellowships to become an opportunity for UCR students to pave a career path into state government.

“I wanted California’s leaders to understand how good UC Riverside students are,” said Loveridge. ”We have the fifth-largest economy in the world, containing over 40 million people and leading the country in many new policy initiatives. Sacramento is an exciting and important place to be, so I would like to send our best and brightest students to work in state politics.”

There have been over 40 recipients since 2015, with each one detailing how transformative the program has been for their professional endeavors. Here are a few words from several Loveridge Fellow alumni:

Daniel Castaneda, Fellow for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, 2018 Cohort

Out of all of the projects you had, what was the highlight of your internship?

“I wrote a paper about river revitalization projects published by the Pacific Council on International Policy and shared at the Speaker’s South East Los Angeles (SELA) Arts Festival. It was designed to generate support for AB530 and encourage Angelenos to reimagine use of the LA River. I enjoyed participating in generating new ideas and collaborating with other leaders in the Capitol to support the Speaker’s district.”

Natalia Garcia, Fellow for Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes, 2019 Cohort

What was an important lesson you learned from being a Loveridge Fellow?

“Professionally, I developed a key comprehension of the legislative process, staffed my Assemblymember in amending a resolution, and formed meaningful connections with those working in the state legislature. Personally, I gained greater confidence in my abilities as a public servant and made lasting friendships with my fellow cohort of incredible people.”

Joanna Mai, Fellow for American Lung Association, 2019 Cohort

What was the most memorable experience as a Loveridge Fellow?

“Meeting Mary Nichols, Chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board. I was advocating for clean air and transportation policies for my hometown, Los Angeles, and other highly polluted cities in California during one of the workshops. I’ve read books about her leading the fight for clean air against the federal government using the Clear Air Act in the 1970s, but I never imagined I’d be speaking in front of her one day!”

Meena Kaypour, Fellow for Assemblymember Jose Medina, 2018 Cohort

How did the Loveridge Fellowship impact your future aspirations and career?

“It allowed me to explore a new side of the law. I went to Sacramento hoping to better understand the way our laws are created, and the motivation by which they are made. Now, almost two years later, I carry that understanding with me in law school as I navigate the way laws are expressed and their impact on our justice system.”

Ayesha Abbasi, Fellow for Community College League of California, 2019 Cohort

What kind of tasks did you take on during your internship?

“I took on the tasks of researching various higher education bills, attending committee meetings, lobbying legislators, and doing a deep dive into the history of California’s community colleges. My tasks allowed me to gain first-hand experience with the legislative system and grow confident in talking to major stakeholders from across the state of California.”

2020 Loveridge Summer Fellowship Program

The Loveridge Summer Fellowship Program gives UCR undergraduate students a chance to spend ten weeks interning in political offices primarily in Sacramento.

APPLY NOW

3.00 minimum overall GPA is required.
Summer stipend is $3,000.
Commitment is ten weeks (full-time), from the last week in June through the last week in August.

Email the completed application (as a PDF or Microsoft Word document) and resume to cherrie.veriato@ucr.edu by Friday, Feb. 21. The subject line of your email should be "2020 Loveridge Summer Fellowship – Your Last Name."

FEATURED PHOTO. Photo courtesy of Melissa Sagun, CHASS Marketing & Communications.
Last year's Loveridge Fellows included UCR students, beginning second from left: Joanna Mai, Melissa Sagun, Natalia Garcia, and Ayesha Abbasi.

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Professor Verghese completes research fellowship in India

kelvin — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 23:58:43 +0000

Professor Verghese completes research fellowship in India kelvin Thu, 08/15/2019 - 16:58 More Press Releases Hannah Croft, Student Writer/CHASS Marketing and Communications July 15, 2019

Does more money and education make you less religious? That’s the question Ajay Verghese, professor of political science, hopes to answer with his research.

A Fulbright scholarship in 2017 made it possible for Verghese to travel to India to begin his research. In July 2019, Verghese will travel on a three-month Senior Short-Term Fellowship, funded by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). Verghese will use the fellowship to complete the second half of his research analyzing whether the country’s growing industrialization has any effect on Hindu religious practices.

“This project looks at the idea of secularization, which is this very old theory that says as countries become more modern, they become less religious,” Verghese said. “Usually what it means is, when we introduce mass schooling and have higher literacy rates and incomes, people in these societies tend to become less religious. A lot of these theories were developed for monotheistic religions, like Christianity and Islam, and I’m taking these bigger ideas and applying them specifically to Hinduism.”

Verghese will travel to various states to conduct his research, comparing the local Hindu populations of Cochin, a city in the southwest state of Kerala to the Hindu population of Putna, a city in the northern state of Bihar.

“What I did was, I picked the least developed and the most developed states for a totally diverse sample”, Verghese said. “I spent a lot of time in Patna, a city with a real lack of infrastructure with a lot of poverty and pollution. I did research in that city, and I did research in Cochin, a very cosmopolitan, more developed city with higher literacy rates. I’m comparing people who live in these two cities to kind of see how they have differing views on religion.”

By returning to these cities this summer, Verghese plans on building upon his previous findings, which have surprised him so far.

“The main thing that I’ve discovered is, the only thing that seems to decrease how religious people are, is better health,” Verghese said. “More education and more income doesn’t seem to make people less religious, but better health seems to be the only thing that seems to matter. The biggest surprise to me was I thought that as people got wealthier they might become less religious, but some of the surveys I did last time showed the opposite. People who are wealthier or more educated are actually more religious.”

Despite Verghese’s deep love for his research, he admits at times it can be challenging.

“I’ve always been interested in religion and politics,” Verghese said. “I feel pretty proud of the fact that the AIIS funded political science. It’s a pretty difficult grant to get, so that’s exciting. I find the research exciting, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot in the process. You forge relationships with people in other countries, but it can occasionally be frustrating. You might spend a lot of time with someone and still not be able to fully understand very much about them, or you might spend three months living in a city where you don’t know anyone at all. You have to be okay with being confused, and you have to be willing to think outside the box.”

Verghese is grateful to Senior Grant Writer Lynda Jenkins for her assistance in obtaining the grant, and plans on publishing a second book upon the completion of his research. Jenkins, who has assisted in writing almost 50 grant proposals in 2018 alone, praised Verghese’s research and professionalism.

“I found his work to be incredibly interesting,” Jenkins said. “I worked with him on multiple proposals, so I’ve gotten to be more familiar with his work. He is very thoughtful and easy to work with, and takes my suggestions to heart so as to make his work more understandable for someone who is not a subject expert. He is very insightful, and is very collaborative.”

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