Representation, Participation & Recognition

Partnership with UGA Admissions:

UGA recruits students directly to the university, but not to individual academic units. Nevertheless, SPIA joins Admissions purposefully to recruit students to UGA from diverse backgrounds and underserved communities – whether or not those students eventually join SPIA. SPIA actively participates in Road Dawgs, Movimiento Latino, and Georgia African American Male Initiative (GAAME). SPIA’s recruitment efforts are facilitated by the availability of funds supporting students with economic need including the School’s five Georgia Commitment scholarships.

Graduate Student Recruitment:

Promoting diversity in our graduate student body is a formal goal in SPIA’s strategic plan. SPIA’s outreach to prospective graduate students from underrepresented and underserved communities include leveraging relevant SPIA and university resources (e.g., UGA Graduate School Recruitment Enhancement Grant) to strengthen offers of funding; faculty participation in HBCU virtual and in-person recruitment fairs; and individualized Q&A opportunities with faculty and professional staff to candidates before and after an offer of admission.

Faculty Representation and Recruitment:

• Guest scholar seminars: Each department at SPIA hosts a lecture series featuring visiting scholars who are underrepresented in the academy so as to promote professional opportunities for these experts and introduce them to the scholarly community at SPIA.
• Training for faculty search committees: SPIA aims to have all search committee members participate in a UGA Office of Faculty Affairs Faculty Search Committee Training workshop which covers strategies for advancing diverse and inclusive faculty hiring.
• Partnership with institutional diversity experts: SPIA collaborates with the UGA Office of Institutional Diversity when recruiting faculty from underrepresented backgrounds.

SPIA Honors Society for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity:

This student organization is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Its current and planned activities include a speaker series, professional development workshops, and mentorship.

Recipients of the SPIA Fostering Community Award are honored for significant efforts to advance the School’s commitment to foster greater understanding, unity, goodwill, representation and empowerment of all community members within SPIA, UGA, or in our work at the local, state, national, or international level.

A lecture series hosted jointly by the UGA School of Law and SPIA honoring the life and legacy of the late Judge Horace Johnson Jr. of Alcovy Judicial Circuit Superior Court, Georgia. Click here for more information.