Graduate Student Organizations

GAPS is a student-led organization at the University of Michigan that bridges the graduate student community and the broader political science department. In addition to advocacy, we host events and distribute resources for grad student success. To this purpose, GAPS:

• Works with faculty to make graduate student concerns heard and addressed, particularly concerning:
  • curriculum development
  • faculty hiring
  • technological services
  • research opportunities
  • funding
• Engenders a positive climate for students of all races, creeds, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities.
  
• Encourages professional development for both academic and non-academic careers
• Eases first-years’ transition to graduate student life.
• Facilitates communication between different graduate student organizations.
• Promotes a culture of participation
• Increases student awareness of existing UM and departmental resources
• Helps develop collegial relations between graduate students and between graduate students, faculty, and staff.
• Works to make UM the top political science department, including assisting recruitment efforts.

For more information, click HERE.

We seek to create a network of political scientists interested in creating and maintaining a supportive academic and professional environment in the Department of Political Science, regardless of race or ethnic background.

The American Institutions Group (AIG) is a Rackham interdisciplinary workshop for faculty and graduate students that meets twice a month to discuss recent and forthcoming research on American political institutions (e.g. Congress, the presidency, state legislatures and executives, the courts, and the bureaucracy). Our key goals are to offer new and varied perspectives for graduate students to harness in their own dissertation work on American political institutions; encourage conversations that breed new research ideas; and spur innovative collaborations among our participants. AIG participants are scholars in political science, public health, social work, public policy, and economics interested in examinations of American political institutions from the perspective of these disciplines.

For more information, click HERE.

This is a scholarly community focused on political conflict and peace through the use of rigorous, evidence-based research as well as community-building related efforts around relevant themes.

The Conflict & Peace, Research & Development (C&P, R&D or CPRD) group comprises individuals and activities broadly concerned with political conflict (e.g., genocide, civil war, human rights violation, terrorism, protest, torture, domestic spying and everyday resistance) and peace (e.g., community building, inter-group relations and negotiation). The range of topics is purposefully conceived in as encompassing a manner as possible.

For more information, click HERE.

The Interdisciplinary Workshop in American Politics hosts weekly research workshops, where graduate students present their research and receive feedback. These workshops are structured to function both as a means of improving research, and to provide graduate students with an opportunity to gain the professional skills necessary to an academic career. 

In addition to our weekly workshops, IWAP invites faculty from other universities to present their cutting-edge research. IWAP has a tradition of inviting and hosting many high-profile researchers from the nation’s top universities, thereby both broadening the interdisciplinary appeal of the workshop and introducing our students to the newest areas and methodologies of research.

For more information, click HERE.

The Interdisciplinary Workshop in Comparative Politics (IWCP) provides a platform for sharing and improving research that provides comparative perspectives on the causes and effects of political and economic processes. We have participants from Economics, the Ford School of Public Policy, the Law School, the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Mathematics, Political Science, the Ross School of Business, Sociology, Statistics, and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.

For more information, click HERE.

The Interdisciplinary Workshop on Gender and Politics (IGAP) is a Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop for scholars interested in studying the relationships between gender, sexuality, and politics.

For more information, click HERE.

Racial and ethnic identities play a key role in shaping behaviors, attitudes, institutions and social structures. As such, scholars across disciplines have been devoted to investigating how race and ethnicity feature in every aspect of social and political life. The purpose of I-REP (Interdisciplinary Workshop in Race, Ethnicity and Politics) is to provide a space for scholars whose research centers race, ethnicity and politics across a number of fields to receive critical feedback on the early stages of their work (especially graduate students), build community with other researchers who share similar interests and offer an opportunity for participants to collaborate on a joint research project within the working group.

For more information, click HERE.