Jeaná Morrison

Jeaná Morrison (Education, PhD, ’17) is no stranger to seeking out opportunities to further her education: She was accepted into the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, which is part of the TRIO Program, a government initiative that provides low-income and underrepresented college students with research opportunities and preparation for PhD programs. She also worked for Upward Bound, another TRIO Program, which offers college prep services to low-income high school students. The doctoral student applied for the Boren Fellowship to Brazil to research the country’s rather new affirmative action policies in higher ed.

Jeaná applied for the Ford Foundation and Spencer Foundation Fellowship Programs to assist with funding during the writing stage of her dissertation. She applied to the Ford Foundation Fellowships because it specifically seeks to increase the number of underrepresented groups in the professoriate and the Spencer Foundation Fellowship because it is a prestigious fellowship for the field of education.