Predoctoral Summer Institute

博士前暑期学院（PSI）在乔治城大学举行。在华盛顿特区、特拉华州、马里兰州、弗吉尼亚州和西弗吉尼亚州，大约有20名即将升入大学的三年级和四年级学生参加了该研究所，其中许多是少数民族。PSI有四个首要的实际目标：提供政治科学学科的子领域和方法的易于理解和引人入胜的概述；鼓励参与者进行研究，并将自己设想为研究人员；揭开申请研究生课程和攻读研究生学位的神秘面纱；并阐明了政治科学博士课程毕业生的职业道路。在追求这些实际目标的过程中，PSI旨在实现两个更广泛的目标：授权不同的参与者群体研究无数紧迫的政治主题，以推进新地点的创新研究，使用新方法，发展新理论，并产生可操作的发现；加强政治科学研究生教育中学生群体背景和观点的多样性，从而为创造一支更多元化、更具全球竞争力的STEM劳动力做出贡献。PSI支持学生参与者成功申请研究生院，并为他们提供在研究生课程中脱颖而出的工具。因此，该研究所有助于扩大、深化和加强申请研究生课程的学生人数，提高未被充分代表的学生的录取率，并扩大历史上未被充分代表的群体在STEM领域的参与，从而促进智力进步。此外，该计划的系统评估允许对历史上代表性不足的背景的学生进行研究生教育的主要障碍的了解；制定战略和最佳实践，以支持来自这些背景的学生，并设计和扩展跨机构、地区和学科的此类举措。反过来，这些知识将为制定以证据为主导的干预措施奠定坚实的基础，这些干预措施旨在加强学术界的多样性、公平性和包容性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Predoctoral Summer Institute (PSI) is held at Georgetown University. Approximately 20 rising juniors and seniors attending college/university in Washington, DC, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, many of whom are under-represented minorities, attend the Institute. The PSI has four overarching practical objectives: providing accessible and engaging overviews of the subfields and methods of the political science discipline; encouraging participants to conduct research and envision themselves as researchers; demystifying the processes of applying to graduate programs and pursuing a graduate degree; and elucidating the career paths open to graduates of doctoral programs in political science. In pursuing these practical objectives, PSI aims to accomplish two broader goals: empowering diverse cohorts of participants studying myriad pressing political topics to advance innovative research in new sites, using new methods, developing new theories, and generating actionable findings; and enhancing the diversity of the backgrounds and perspectives of the student population in political science graduate education, thereby contributing to creating a more diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce. PSI supports student participants to successfully apply to graduate school and provides them with the tools to excel in their graduate programs. The Institute thus contributes to broadening, deepening, and strengthening the pool of students applying to graduate programs, to boosting the acceptance rate of underrepresented students, and to augmenting the participation of historically underrepresented groups in STEM – thereby fostering intellectual progress. Moreover, the systematic evaluation of the program allows advances in knowledge about key barriers to graduate education for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds; and the development of strategies and best practices for supporting students from these backgrounds, and for designing and scaling such initiatives across institutions, regions, and disciplines. This knowledge, in turn, will form a robust foundation for the development of evidence-led interventions aimed at enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the academy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.