Announcing the Fellowship Pods Program

I am happy to announce that the Coalition has established The Fellowship Pods Program, a non-hierarchical fellowship program to foster community-building among its membership. The program is designed to respond to members’ calls for a re-imagining and re-structuring of coalition networks that have fostered a culture of elitism and bias. Distinct from the Coalition’s existing mentoring programs that offer guidance regarding professionalization and publication, the Fellowship Pods program will provide space for members to think, organize, and revel with other members around collectively chosen topics and shared interests.

The Coalition hopes that the Fellowship Pods Program will help

  • disrupt charismatic models of leadership in the Coalition
  • encourage participants to establish and maintain relationships with the Coalition membership beyond the confines of Feminism and Rhetorics conferencing, and
  • foster membership collaboration on research, teaching, and community engagement & social justice projects 

The program will run from July 2021 through May 2022. In July, program participants will be assigned to a pod (small group of Coalition members), and, in their first meeting(s), members will determine the anticipated topics and activities that will animate their pod’s year-long dialogue and/or collective action. 

THE ASKS:

  1. If you are interested in the Fellowship Pods Program, please email me (mpettus@mec.cuny.edu) and then anticipate receiving an email from me later in the month that provides more information about the initiative, including details about the enrollment process. Note that, to register and participate, you will need to be a member of the Coalition. You can join the Coalition via our website. Rates are $10/year for graduate students and $25/year for faculty (other membership categories and options are available on the website as well). If you are financially unable to become a member at this time but still wish to participate in the Fellowship Pods Program, please let us know.
  2. The Coalition hopes that much of the community-building in the pods will happen organically, so pod members are asked to determine the focus of their fellowship in conversation with each other. Additionally, I want to honor requests that space for identity-based, career-focused, and other themed-pods, including pods based on hobbies and crafts, be created. Therefore, if you would like to join a pod with a pre-established focus, please email me the specific theme and a brief description of the pod you would like established by June 21, 2021. I will advertise these themed-pods during the general enrollment period so that other program participants may elect to join them, if they desire. 

(Note: If you do not wish to join a pod with a pre-established focus, your first action for the program will be to complete the enrollment process later in the summer.)

Please feel encouraged to email me with any questions and concerns. I am serving as the coordinator of the program during its first year, and I welcome all feedback about the program. 

Sincerely,

Mudiwa Pettus (she/her)
CFSHRC Executive Board Member-at-Large
Assistant Professor of English
Medgar Evers College, CUNY
mpettus@mec.cuny.edu