The Pamela Ann Roby Sociology of Race, Class, and Gender Endowment funds two annual awards in the Sociology Department. They are based on academic merit alone.
The first award is the Ida B. Wells Sociology of Race, Class, and Gender Senior Thesis Award. To be eligible for this award, applicants must be UCSC undergraduate sociology majors who have written their senior thesis on race, class, and gender during the academic year, with race, class, and gender being their simultaneous and central foci.
The second award, the Ida B. Wells Sociology of Race, Class, and Gender Ph.D. Dissertation Award recognizes UC Santa Cruz Sociology Ph.D. candidates who have completed a Ph.D. dissertation or a Ph.D. dissertation prospectus plus three or more chapters on race, class, and gender within the U.S.A. Their research may be on subjects such as, but not limited to, health, education, environment, work, etc., in relation to race, class, and gender. The dissertation must contribute to social science and public understanding of race, class, and gender within the U.S., and race, class, and gender must be its simultaneous and central foci.
The endowment was established in 2000 in honor of the now UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita of Sociology Pamela Roby, who named the awards after Ida B. Wells, 1862-1931. Pamela did so in acknowledgement of Wells’ creation and use of sociological methods to publicly, cross-nationally illuminate and powerfully confront the lynching of African-Americans.
