John Goodman, a rising junior within the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Collat School of Business, has been accepted into and will attend this year’s Expanding Diversity in Economics Summer Institute, hosted by the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago and the Hutchins Center for Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution.
The EDE Summer Institute will take place from June 8-30, with two weeks of programming on the University of Chicago campus and a newly added week of programming in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Hutchins Center.
The 45 participants in the 2023 cohort were selected through a holistic and rigorous evaluation process involving more than 650 applications. The cohort represents 31 universities across 16 states. Most participants (96 percent) are first- or second-year undergraduate students, with an average GPA of 3.8. Approximately 40 percent are first-generation college students, and roughly 56 percent are Pell Grant recipients or have household incomes under $20,000. Women compose 62 percent of the cohort; roughly 40 percent of the cohort identify as Black or African American, and 30 percent as Hispanic or Latinx, Native American, or Alaska Native.
The EDE program was launched by BFI in 2021 and aims to increase diversity in economics through finding and supporting outstanding undergraduates who are interested in the field. Through the EDE Summer Institute, BFI and the Hutchins Center are dedicated to fostering a new generation of academics and professionals who draw on the tools of economics to offer new perspectives and research ideas, and eventually make a positive impact in the world. The program recognizes the necessity of diversifying the study of economics and expanding the range of voices in the field.