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Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity

The Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity (CRGE), established in 1999, is a university–wide, interdisciplinary research center, the first of its kind in the CIC and the nation, that is dedicated to the promotion of intersectional scholarship examining the lived experiences of historically underrepresented minorities (URM) and dimensions of inequality, and the mentoring of intersectional and URM groups in the pipeline from undergraduate degrees through early career faculty. CRGE is uniquely situated to provide research leadership and mentoring opportunities by drawing on our pool of talented historically underrepresented intersectional and women scholars in order to mentor the next generation of domestic talent.

Why is CRGE important to the University of Maryland campus?

  • Building human capital is at the core of our mission and programmatic activities
  • Interdisciplinarity and collaboration are the driving forces of our research-building efforts
  • Qualitative and mixed methodologies form a central core of our expertise
  • Combining efforts with ADVANCE enhances the academic pipeline of URM graduate students and faculty 

Research: Our track record reflects over $1.5 million in funding from the Ford Foundation, the University of Maryland Tier 1 seed grant, Division of Research (2009), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (2010-2013), the Faculty Incentive Program, the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) (2014-2016); New Economics for Women on Latina Business Entrepreneurs (2015-2018); and Health Resources Services Administration, NORC subcontract (2015-2016) on URM mentoring.

Mentoring: The mentoring of intersectional and URM graduate students and early career faculty lies at the heart of all of our activities. So far we have mentored 10 undergraduate students, 24 graduate students, and 10 early career scholars in the academic pipeline. In FY 2014-2015 alone we mentored 3 graduate students and 6 undergraduate research interns. Skills are developed through an academic support network of research internships.

Community of Affiliates: Our community of affiliates continues to grow, with 43 faculty from 20 departments. We collaborate with the School of Public Health, Center for Health Equity, the David C. Driskell Center, the Office of Community Outreach, and the University of Maryland Baltimore Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy.

Signature Programs: Qualitative and mixed methods in collaboration with MPRC promote research on longstanding issues around race, ethnicity, and gender to showcase intellectually-stimulating programming and new intersectional qualitative methodologies to campus. Resources available for interested students and faculty include an online faculty Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research Directory that provides students and faculty with the opportunity to identify mentors and committee members and the annual Intersectional Qualitative Research Methods Institute (IQRMI). Our inaugural IQRMI was held in 2015; based on its entrepreneurial sustainability and overall success, the next IQRMI will be held in June 2016.

Social Media and Digital Presence: The Intersectional Research Database (IRD) and URM resources sustain a significant online presence to offer cross-disciplinary connections and disseminate information pertaining to intersectional research on-campus and around the globe. The IRD is a one-of-a-kind, free research tool, containing over 300 unduplicated annotations. We use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Our website visits average 600 per month, representing 48 different states and 59 different countries. The most visited asset on our website is our informational page on mentoring URM faculty at institutions of higher education.

Funding Solicitations: We are seeking growth and future sustainability through an extension of the NEW project. Grants will be solicited from funders interested in research on businesses, entrepreneurship, women empowerment, and underrepresented groups. We are preparing an NSF Broadening Participation/Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) for submission to request funding for innovative research ideas and approaches on how to transform URM scholars in the academic pipeline, navigating from their undergraduate years through full professorship, and to study what factors facilitate retention.