Reminder that SURF-SMART applications are due soon! We’ve had a student reach out with interest in a Phi Alpha Theta student.
The SURF-SMART program provides a $5,000 stipend for undergraduates selected to assist graduate students with summer research projects. Applications are due on March 1, 2022. https://surf.berkeley.edu/applying-surf-smart/Michael Banerjee is a PhD student in Jurisprudence and Social Policy and a mentor with the SURF-SMART research program. His project is an opportunity for a student interested in graduate study in law and/or history to gain interdisciplinary research skills and subject-matter expertise through work on a legal history of the University of California (UC). Under the on-site supervision of the mentor—a rising fourth-year doctoral student in Jurisprudence and Social Policy, and a graduate of Harvard Law School—the student will conduct original legal and historical research essential to a dissertation on constitutional universities—heretofore unrecognized, world-historic universities chartered by state constitutions and peculiar to the American west—of which UC is one. Specifically, the student will analyze UC Regents’ Reports and relevant appellate cases from 1868–1900. The student will produce a weekly two-page memorandum of findings and a final ten-page synthesis, which can serve as a writing sample for graduate applications. The student is expected to commit three days (of their choosing) per week to the project: two days on-site at UC’s Bancroft Library and one day remote. The student will (1) develop interdisciplinary research skills; (2) acquire subject-matter expertise, including in legal history and constitutional law; (3) produce a writing sample for graduate applications; and (4) gain a lifelong academic and professional mentor. All necessary training will be provided.
