Parthenia Luke has always worn a lot of hats.
Child maltreatment and family trauma case manager. Special needs boards. Scholar on childhood neglect in African and Afro-Caribbean communities. Luke has expanded that broad range of interests while a PhD student in the College of Social Work. Her scholarship includes gentrification, displacement and displacement pressure.
As the college’s inaugural Diversity Fellow and MSW/BSW programs instructor, she’s
also the recent winner of a relatively new SEC fellowship. Luke is the UofSC recipient
of the SEC Emerging Scholars Career Preparation Fellowship that provides professional
development and networking for doctoral students considering careers in higher education.
The program’s goal is to encourage great scholars who want to be employed in the SEC
and can reflect their diverse experiences and perspectives in higher education.
The fellowship workshop that Luke will attend includes help with job applications,
“elevator pitches” and what to expect as a full-time faculty member.
“It is an honor to be selected as a SEC Emerging Scholar and awarded a fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year,” said Luke. “I am especially grateful because this fellowship offers me the time and space to focus more exclusively on my research program and career planning over the next year.”
The workshop is one of several initiatives that assist improvement in SEC research
and teaching. Initiated in 2021, Luke is in the second class of the fellowship and
hopes to bring some of her UofSC perspective to the position.
“Black women are often overlooked and undervalued in the academy, especially when
our research interests focus on social justice, so to be offered an opportunity to
represent the University of South Carolina alongside other brilliant scholars of Color
is not only a personal privilege, but a shared acknowledgment of the need for change
and a collective movement toward progress,” Luke said. “I am very much looking forward
to this experience and hope to make the College of Social Work proud.”
Along with sessions on career preparation, the SEC workshop will include a keynote
speaker, panelists and opportunities to meet fellow students and future colleagues.
The 2022 workshop will be hosted by the University of Missouri in Columbia in late
September.
“Black women are often overlooked and undervalued in the academy, especially when our research interests focus on social justice, so to be offered an opportunity to represent the University of South Carolina alongside other brilliant scholars of Color is not only a personal privilege, but a shared acknowledgment of the need for change and a collective movement toward progress.”