MPSA Announces the Creation of the Vincent Hutchings Diversity Travel Scholarship
The Midwest Political Science Association is honored to announce the creation of a new Graduate Student Travel Scholarship, the “Vincent Hutchings Diversity Travel Scholarship”, to help defray travel costs associated with attending the MPSA Annual Conference.
The scholarship honors the work and accomplishments of Vincent Hutchings, Ph.D., Diversity and Social Transformation Professor; Hanes Walton, Jr. Collegiate Professor of Political Science and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Hutchings is an internationally known scholar of political behavior with significant contributions to the literature in public opinion, elections, voting behavior, and African American politics. He has published widely in leading political science journals and twice served as the principal investigator of the American National Election Survey. Professor Hutchings is widely known for his ability to mentor Ph.D. students, chairing or co-chairing 23 dissertations and serving on numerous others. He has made a significant contribution to diversifying the profession with students on the faculty of several major universities in the United States.
Professor Hutchings’ general interests include public opinion, elections, voting behavior, and African American politics. He recently published a book at Princeton University Press entitled Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability: How Citizens Learn About Politics, that focuses on how, and under what circumstances, citizens monitor (and consequently influence) their elected representative’s voting behavior. In addition to this project, Professor Hutchings also studies how the size of the African American constituency in congressional districts can influence legislative responsiveness to Black interests. The most recent product of this research was published in the Journal of Politics. Finally, he is also interested in the ways that campaign communications can “prime” various group identities and subsequently affect candidate evaluations. This study examines how campaign communications can subtly—and not so subtly—prime voter’s racial (and other group-based) attitudes and subsequently affect their political decisions. Research from this project, co-authored with Professor Nicholas Valentino and Ismail White, has been published in the American Political Science Review. Professor Hutchings, and collaborators Ashley Jardina, Rob Mickey, and Hanes Walton, are currently exploring how different news frames can diminish or exacerbate tensions among Whites, Blacks and Latinos.
Professor Hutchings was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar (2000-2002) and has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, most recently (2009) for his project entitled “Elite Communications and Racial Group Conflict in the 21st Century.” He is currently the University of Michigan Principal Investigator for the American National Election Study for the 2012 election cycle.
The scholarship is open for applications and joins 12 other Graduate Student Travel Scholarships awarded by the MPSA to graduate student members in a doctoral program who are presenting at the annual conference. The Vincent Hutchings Diversity Travel Scholarship will provide $500 in travel funding with an awarding preference to students with a diverse background.
Learn more about MPSA Graduate Student Travel Scholarships here. Your support of the discipline and political science scholars makes a difference! Consider making a tax-deductible donation to help fund this scholarship or other MPSA Graduate Student Travel Scholarships.
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About the MPSA
Home of the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), one of the top-ranked academic journals in the discipline, the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) was founded in 1939 and is dedicated to the advancement of scholarship in all areas of political science.
The purposes of the MPSA are to promote the professional study and teaching of political science, to facilitate communications between those engaged in such study, and to develop standards for and encourage research in theoretical and practical political problems. As such, MPSA is a nonpartisan association. It does not support political parties or candidates.