Nike, Inc. and MIT's Political Science Department announced the establishment of the Jill Ker Conway Fellowship Fund. The fund, seeded by a $700,000 gift from Nike, was established in honor of Jill Ker Conway, former president of Smith College and a member of Nike's Board of Directors for more than 24 years, including serving as the long-term chairwoman of the Board's Corporate Responsibility Committee. The new fellowship will provide support for one doctoral student as a way to help spotlight women's rights in the globalized workplace, a cause Conway has worked to elevate throughout her career.
“We are grateful to Nike for its generous gift to MIT Political Science,” said Department Head, Professor Richard Locke, “and for recognizing Ms. Ker Conway, a long time supporter of the Department and our research program. This gift will also be a way to bring more focus to students and issues in developing countries. The fund along with the other endowed fellowships from Andronico Luksic and Jon Borschow will significantly help us in our efforts to strengthen the graduate program in the Department,” says Locke.
“Jill helped establish Nike's Corporate Responsibility Committee in 2001 and elevated environmental and labor issues with the Board. Her insights and contributions to Nike for more than two decades were invaluable and we are delighted to be able to honor her in this way,” said Hannah Jones, Nike's Vice President of Sustainable Business and Innovation.
“I am thrilled this Fellowship program will begin in the Fall. It will be the fulfillment of a dream which began for me as a graduate student when I decided to write a doctoral dissertation on the history of women's access to higher education,” said Jill Ker Conway. “In the course of researching it I began to broaden my research to include women workers in the early industrial revolution and so had a framework, many decades later, to help guide me to advocate for women in contract factories around the world.”
The fellowship is open to current graduate students in MIT's Political Science Department. Recipients of fellowship support from the fund will be called Jill Ker Conway Fellows.
