Abunya Agi, Kristen Glasener, and Kimberly Ransom receive Rackham Predoctoral Fellowships
Three SOE doctoral candidates earned Rackham Predoctoral Fellowships for the year 2019-2020. Education and Psychology student Abunya Agi, Higher Education student Kristen Glasener, and Educational Studies student Kimberly Ransom are among the honorees. The Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards given to graduate students by the Rackham Graduate School. Students selected for this twelve-month fellowship have advanced to candidacy and are anticipating finishing their PhD within six years of beginning their studies. The award takes into consideration professional papers and presentations, publications, honors, and academic standing.
Abunya Agi, Education and Psychology student, is researching the racialization experiences of black immigrant-origin youth in North America, a population that is often overlooked in ethnic-racial identity research. Her dissertation will unpack the processes through which those with immigrant origins develop more adaptive outcomes.
Kristen Glasener, Higher Education student, is examining the fact that the percentage of low-income students enrolled in elite colleges has remained stagnant for over two decades. She is using social network analysis to map feeder relationships between high schools and elite colleges, then conducting interviews with high school counselors and admissions officers to understand these feeder ties and how they influence the selective admissions process. This research is the first to map the high school feeder network for elite colleges in the United States.
Kimberly Ransom, Educational Studies student, is studying how black children experienced childhood or articulated agency in schools. She is examining archival sources, oral histories, and material objects of once-children who attended Rosenwald Schools in Pickens County, Alabama (1940- 1969). She aims to understand what might be learned about the agency of black children and the character of black childhood in and around pre-Brown segregated schools; and by implication black childhood in this space and time.
Rackham Predoctoral Fellowships are supported by the Horace Rackham Endowment, which was created in 1935. More than 2,300 doctoral students have received this fellowship since it was established.