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Engaging with Diversity to Build Inclusion SIS Undergraduate Opportunities

Whether students have academic, professional, or personal interests in deepening their understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion during their undergraduate education, SIS offers a range of opportunities. Meaningful engagement with difference comes in the classroom and beyond in the form of living communities, student clubs, and workshops. While thematic areas like “Global Inequality and Development” offer a path toward deeper knowledge of equity, the ethos of service and social justice at SIS offer experiential opportunities to contribute to more equitable systems.

Students will find a range of ways to build skills of intercultural communication, antiracism, and leadership to create more inclusive communities both in and out of the classroom. With future sights on careers in international affairs, these skillsets will be invaluable for the next steps in their journeys.

35 percent

of SIS undergrads identify as U.S.-born students of color

Rosy Chavez-Martinez sits reading on the steps in the School of International Service atrium at American University.

Alumni

Honing a Global Vision

At SIS, Rosy Chavez-Martinez, SIS/BA ’24, a recipient of the Raynard Family and Andrew Juster Family Scholarships, pursues her interest in security and policy in Latin America.

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Course Spotlight

Environment, Community, and EquityFall 2024 Taught by Professor Garrett Graddy-Lovelace

As a part of this course, students will actively serve with a nonprofit agency or school in the DC area to apply their course knowledge. This course introduces students to social, political economic, (agri)cultural, and epistemic contexts and consequences of what are framed as environmental problems. This entails contextualizing ecological crises within histories of colonialism and anticolonialism and geographies of coloniality and decoloniality, from land defenders to water protectors. Drawing on geopolitical ecology, bioethics, and environmental justice, the class focuses on food and agricultural systems, policies, and equity movements. SIS 296-002

Highlights

headshot of Professor Matlon

Professor Spotlight

Professor Jordanna Matlon will teach SIS 340-001 Anthropocene and Crises of Captialism in the Fall 2024 semester.

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Funded Opportunity: Clarke Fellowship- US Dept. of State

Funded by the US Department of State, the Clarke DS Fellowship is a two-year graduate fellowship program designed for individuals who want to prusue a master's degree and a career as a Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent in the Foreign Service. Application deadline: April 29, 2024.

Apply now

Regional Courses Offerings

SIS has increased undergraduate regional course offerings, especially in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. 

A list of regional course offerings across AU is now available. Cross-check this list with the course schedule to identify courses offered during a term.

Browse Course Offerings

SIS Student Helps Foster Belonging at AU

Barbara Taylor, SIS/MA '22

I have the opportunity to co-create spaces that shift our worldviews.

Working in the Intergroup Dialogue program at AU’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI), I have learned how to create space for students to explore their identities and grow through the discomfort of addressing difficult topics. Dialogues are also spaces for marginalized communities to engage on pressing issues they face.

Learn more about Intergroup Dialogue