05/16/08 - Sociology professor receives Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship for book project

Zulema Valdez, assistant professor of sociology, has been awarded a Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship to support research on her current book project, Beyond Ethnic Entrepreneurship: Race, Class & Gender in American Enterprise.

The current manuscript investigates the role that American capitalism plays in creating and reproducing systems of oppression rooted in race, class, and gender, and how these intersecting group affiliations affect entrepreneurship in this context. The project is based on a mixed-methods study of white, black, Latino, and Asian entrepreneurs in Houston, Texas.

Valdez received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002. Her areas of interest include racial and ethnic relations and international migration.

The Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships seek to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

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Contact: Holly Lambert, hollyalyselambert@libarts.tamu.edu, 979.862.4879