In a time when graduate students have more questions than answers about the future of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, Duke Graduate and Professional Student Government’s microgrant program offers solutions.
The program, a student-run initiative of GPSG’s diversity, equity, inclusion and justice committee, awards funds for graduate students and groups to attend conferences, conduct research and organize programming related to DEI — granting over $45,000 to applicants just this year.
“Students across all kinds of backgrounds have such important stories to tell. We see it. We want to help bring those stories to life,” wrote GPSG President Keanu Valibia, a third-year dual master’s student in the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Sanford School of Public Policy, in a Monday email to The Chronicle. “Our microgrants provide seed money to kickstart new ideas or close critical funding gaps that too often prevent amazing students from fostering conversations, connections and understanding.”
DEI microgrant program
Some of Duke’s nearly 11,000 graduate and professional students find extracurricular funding hard to come by — especially for projects which lack traditional sources of support.
According to Jonathan Jean-Pierre, DEI director for GPSG and executive master's in business administration candidate, while there are broad sources of funding for the University’s undergraduates to participate in campus immersion experiences, attend conferences and conduct research overseas, such funding is not “available at scale or accessible to” all graduate and professional students.
Jilian Palmer, GPSG senator and third-year master’s student in the Divinity School, added that budgets are “not created equally across the graduate programs,” with graduate school councils varying in the size of their budget.
To fill this gap, the microgrant program gifts awards ranging from $100 to $2,500 to graduate students and organizations with proposals consistent with DEI principles. The program is funded in full by the Duke graduate student services fee.
“Currently at Duke, we don’t really have a central mechanism to promote DEI efforts at scale that really address critical pain points in the student experience,” Jean-Pierre said. He elaborated that such pain points include economic disparities that hinder student access to internships and off-campus immersions.
According to Palmer, the microgrant program awarded funding to all 27 applicants this year — which, per Valibia, amounted to a $20,000 funding increase in comparison to last year when the program was launched. He wrote that the increase “isn’t just due to funding request amounts,” but instead because the program is “reaching more students and supporting more projects.”
Palmer and Jean-Pierre detailed that while some applicants seek first-time funding, others apply looking to expand the reach of existing projects.
The program funds a wide range of projects and activities related to DEI. According to Jean-Pierre, GPSG microgrants have helped fund registration and travel for students to attend a student engagement DEI summit, paid for travel necessities for a graduate student’s ethnographic research in sub-Saharan Africa and supported tutoring services and guest speakers at events with local Durham nonprofits.
Palmer shared that award recipients have utilized their funds to organize conferences, start a podcast to platform women of color and take graduate student groups to Washington, D.C., to meet alumni doing justice and policy work.
According to Jean-Pierre, the initiative implemented a “streamlined” application process this year that removed “barriers” such as an essay component. Now, the application focuses on taking a “holistic” view of DEI, which considers factors such as the impact of a project on the local community and the skills that will be brought back to Duke.
The DEIJ committee ranks applications on a “prioritization matrix” based on the quantity of students impacted, planned uses of the funds, sustainability and alignment with the program’s goals.
“Is this something that can cause a ripple effect within the community, or is this a standalone event that is good for just now?” Palmer said she asks when evaluating applications.
Navigating the DEI climate
In summer 2024, Jean-Pierre and his team conducted an assessment of the state of DEI at Duke. The survey identified “headwinds” in areas including economic disparities, campus polarization and mental health concerns.
The results of the state assessment informed GPSG’s 2025 DEI strategy, which focuses on pillars of economic empowerment and accessibility, community building and belonging, and mental health and well-being. The strategy set in motion a suite of resources and programming for graduate students, such as an informative newsletter and a winter holiday formal attended by over 500 graduate students.
The strategy’s “secret sauce,” Jean-Pierre explained, became the microgrant program.
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“We got so much positive feedback from deans, faculty and student leaders about [the microgrant program],” Jean-Pierre said, noting that the praise has come even as “a lot of universities are pulling away from DEI.”
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to terminate DEI programs in the federal government, jeopardizing “equity-related” grants received by institutions including Duke.
In the months since, universities including the University of Iowa, University of Virginia, The Ohio State University and University of Michigan have scrapped their DEI offices and programs.
At Duke, the impact of the federal actions remains unclear. In a Tuesday webinar with faculty, staff and graduate students, President Vincent Price reaffirmed the University's pledge to “abide by the law while also remaining firm in [Duke’s] commitment to advancing inclusive excellence in [its] core missions of research, education and inpatient care.”
“Given the climate where we are, there has been a noticeable difference within the student body looking for … a sense of community just given everything, all the headwinds happening outside of Duke’s campus,” Jean-Pierre said.
In response, Jean-Pierre shared that the DEIJ committee has collaborated with a variety of offices and affinity groups to “amplify work that the University is doing to foster an inclusive campus.”
He added that despite executive orders surrounding DEI, which have put Duke in an “assessment period” regarding its values and positioning, GPSG is building on its “momentum” — and hasn’t received “any pushback from administration or faculty.”
“I would love to see this continue, especially now, where specifically or explicitly DEI programming is being threatened,” Palmer said.
Still, Jean-Pierre said he was “not sure where this program will be next year” as Duke navigates the shifting federal DEI climate.
“Every university across the [United States] and even the globe is dealing with these issues around DEI and how to reconcile just given where we are, but the resources that we have — and that [are] student-led — [have] been really helpful for students,” Jean-Pierre said.
Michael Austin is a Trinity junior and managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.