Current & Past Projects

Over the past few years, the APSA Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession has undertaken various initiatives to advance graduate student interests across the discipline. Below is a recap of our current and past projects.

Looking for graduate student resources? Please use this link.

Graduate Student Member Support Grant

In Fall 2023, the Graduate Student Committee launched the Graduate Student Member Support Grant to provide financial assistance to graduate students facing unexpected financial insecurity.

You may learn more about the support grant here.

Graduate Student Virtual Workshop Series

APSA’s Graduate Student Status Committee launched a virtual workshop series in January 2024 to offer accessible, high-quality professional development opportunities to political science graduate students.

Watch past events and access supplemental resources »

Archived Newsletters

Graduate Student Virtual Workshop Series (2025)

APSA’s Graduate Student Status Committee has launched their seventh event in their professional development virtual workshop series! This virtual series features accessible, high-quality professional development opportunities for political science graduate students.

2022-2023: Realities Facing Graduate Students in the Profession

Realities Facing Graduate Students in the Profession

This roundtable was an extension of previous Graduate Committee work to conduct an APSA-wide survey of graduate students regarding the climate they face within the discipline. Please take a look at the panel’s recording below:

Dr. Angela Pashayan
Dr. Stefan Kehlenbach
Dr. Huei-Jyun Ye

Publication from the APSA Roundtable: 2023 March. Pashayan, A., Kehlenbach, E., Ye, H., Mueller, G., & Willis, C. (2023). The Realities Facing Graduate Students: Before, During, and After the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic. PS: Political Science & Politics, 1-7. doi:10.1017/S1049096523000252.

2020-2022: Climate Survey and Advancing Racial Justice in Political Science

Every year, APSA Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession sponsors a panel at the Annual Meeting on the graduate student experience:

APSA 2021 “Advancing Racial Justice in Political Science”

In 2020, we witnessed universities across the U.S. and the globe condemn anti-Black racism following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the ongoing movements of Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall. Statements on racial justice were accompanied by university town halls, panels, vigils, committees, and other measures. This year, APSA Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession seeks to approach the conversation on racial justice critically and in a way that graduate students across the discipline will find affirming and useful.

Panelists:

Dr. Kelebogile Zvobgo
Bhumi Purohit
Dr. Fernando Tormos-Aponte
Kaneesha Johnson
Maricruz Ariana Osorio
Alison Boehmer
Bianca Freeman (Chair)

Each of our panelists have done and are doing valuable work to advance racial justice in the discipline at various stages of the pipeline. Their work takes an organizing approach in political science and covers POCAlsoKnowStuff, Decolonial Politics group, the GAPS (Graduate Anti-Racist Political Science) Collective, MIGAP (Minority Graduate Placement Program), allyship, and other active racial justice measures. Their insights and contributions energize the future of what advancing racial justice could like in political science.

APSA 2020 Panel on “Navigating the Climate”

Every year, the Graduate Student Status Committee sponsors a panel at the APSA Annual Meeting on the graduate student experience.

Navigating the Climate: Tackling Challenges in Political Science
Saturday, September 12, 2020, 10–11:30 a.m. MDT

This year, the panel will take place virtually on Saturday, September 12 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Mountain time. In 2020, the Committee on the Status of Graduate Students is conducting a climate survey of graduate students about their economic conditions and the diversity of the discipline and their institutions. Next year, the Committee will be conducting a climate survey of graduate students about harassment in the profession. This panel will address all three issues (economic conditions, diversity and inclusion, and harassment), featuring panelists who will speak to the concrete challenges these issues pose and the larger issues of equity and fairness in the profession that they raise. Join us on the virtual meeting portal!

Panelists:

Rachel Torres, University of Iowa (chair)
Kiela Crabtree, University of Michigan
Princess Hope Williams, University of Michigan
Periloux Peay, Georgia Tech University
Sophie Hill, Harvard University

Climate Survey

The Graduate Student Status Committee is currently developing a survey, to be fielded in fall 2020, to collect data on graduate students’ experiences of financial insecurity and other issues that have negatively affected their experiences in graduate school. These data will be shared with the APSA Council and used to inform organizational priorities going forward.