We invite you to apply to the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis as an Academic Research Fellow. The Hooks Institute aims at becoming one of the top-ranked research institutes in the nation. We see the Hooks Institute as a premier center for scholars working on race and social justice scholarship. While many know us from our prestigious National Book Award, much of the Institute’s success comes from our policy papers, conferences, lecture series, and our Facebook Live events. These programs and the Academic Research Fellows Program fulfill the Hooks Institute’s mission of teaching, studying, and promoting civil rights and social change.
To become a Fellow, you must have a terminal degree in your field of expertise, agree to meet quarterly (via Zoom) for an hour to help us provide infrastructure to our Fellows program, and agree to write for our scholarly blog Uplift Memphis, Uplift the Nation. The frequency of written contributions to the blog will be a topic for discussion among the selected fellows at our first meeting. Persons as Academic Fellows with the Hooks Institute will serve for two years.
In return, along with being associated with a national center for social change, the Hooks Institute will help to promote any of your awards, recognitions, promotions, publications, etc. We will also host Facebook Live events that feature your work and scholarship. Additionally, journalists and scholars from various disciplines consult us to identify those who work in your research and scholarship areas. We hope that creating an Academic Research Fellows list will serve as a hub for those searching for scholars on specific topics—including yourself when you are looking for potential collaborators. We aim to build a network of scholars that will give anyone visiting the Institute’s website a more accurate sense of our work and partnerships.
If you are interested, please submit your CV and a 300 word narrative of how your research agenda relates to the Hooks Institute’s mission to Meghan Cullen at mcullen@memphis.edu. If you have any questions, please contact Andre E. Johnson at ajohnsn6@memphis.edu