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You Make Us Great

The Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota ranks among the top 25 in the United States. Members of the department's outstanding faculty—from internationally recognized scholars and teachers to rising stars—have long been in the vanguard of the discipline, helping us understand political systems and political life both domestically and internationally.

Your generous gifts to the Department of Political Science are more critical than ever to help maintain the distinguished reputation of the department. They help us attract the very best students by providing encouragement and financial support. They help us retain the very best scholars by giving faculty the resources to enlarge knowledge and understanding.

What Your Gift Can Do

Your contribution allows us to ensure:

  • A distinguished faculty: creating endowed chairs and professorships and supporting interdisciplinary research centers and programs will help us recruit and retain outstanding faculty.
  • Excellence and competitiveness of our graduate program: Faculty choose institutions that attract the best graduate students. We need to ensure the excellence and competitiveness of our graduate programs so that we may compete for the best faculty and brightest students.
  • A diverse and engaged undergraduate student body: Although we are attracting better students than ever before, too many other outstanding students choose other institutions—often for financial reasons. Merit and need-based scholarships are needed to recruit many outstanding students.

Choose a Fund

To remain competitive, we need your support for faculty research funds, undergraduate scholarships, and graduate student fellowships. We have several endowed funds that may interest you.

  • Department of Political Science General Fund: This fund provides valuable discretionary support to the department, allowing us to make strategic investments when opportunities and critical needs arise. Funds support a variety of activities for our undergraduate and graduate students, as well as events for students, alumni and the public.
  • Charles Backstrom Scholarship Fund: assists undergraduate students in Political Science with tuition, fees, and the purchase of books and materials.
  • Alfred I. Johnson Memorial Scholarship: gives undergraduate students with a demonstrated interest in public affairs a stipend for their internships.
  • Andrew (Andy) Dickinson Memorial Fellowship: support for full-time graduate students in Political Science to conduct short-term doctoral research.
  • Raymond Duvall Scholarship: support for graduate and undergraduate students conducting basic research in the field of international relations.
  • Robert and Shirley Holt Discovery Fellowship: financial assistance for exceptional candidates seeking a PhD degree in Political Science.
  • Frank J. Sorauf Graduate Fellowship: support for full-time graduate students in Political Science with an interest in American government and politics.

With your tax-deductible contribution we will continue to excel at educating leading teachers and scholars, policymakers, local and national leaders, and global citizens.