Six faculty have been awarded Chancellor’s Leadership Fellowships for 2019, according to John McCarthy, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and Anna Branch, associate chancellor for equity and inclusion.

Linda Tropp, professor of social psychology, is working with associate chancellor Anna Branch in the office of equity and inclusion.

These fellowships seek to cultivate future campus leaders by offering a half-time, one-year, temporary appointment to an administrative area on campus and by providing shadowing and mentoring from the leaders of the host units. In addition, fellows are expected to launch a significant program during the fellowship year.

“The Chancellor’s Leadership Fellowship provides an opportunity for faculty to learn about academic administration from the inside out,” McCarthy says. “It is critical to the future of this institution that talented faculty members have an opportunity to participate in high-level decision-making and contribute to development and implementation of our strategic plans.”

Branch adds, “These fellowships enable faculty to develop and demonstrate capacity for leadership in arenas that are not often a part of day to day faculty life. I am thrilled this cohort reflects and supports our commitment to supporting diversity in the campus leadership ranks.”

Tropp studies how members of different groups experience contact with each other and how group differences in status affect cross-group relations. She has worked with national organizations on U.S. Supreme Court cases relevant to racial integration and equity, on national initiatives to improve interracial relations in schools and with non-governmental organizations to evaluate interventions designed to bridge group differences in divided societies. A fellow of the American Psychological Association, Tropp has received distinguished research and teaching awards from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the International Society of Political Psychology. Tropp will work with faculty and staff in the College of Education to review materials on diversity and inclusion and to envision, develop and evaluate the effectiveness of new training modules for pre-service teachers.