This past fall, while he was taking the Sociology 176 class that teaches Fresno State students about qualitative research methods, senior sociology and Spanish double-major Rafael Mota worked on a research project that put classroom concepts into real-world practice. That class, and his work with sociology professor Dr. Amber Crowell, led Mota to apply for the new College of Social Sciences Emerging Scholars Program.
The Emerging Scholars Program focuses on students who have been historically excluded from research opportunities or may not have envisioned themselves as researchers or scholars. As students work on projects with faculty mentors, they develop skills related to professional interests or community outreach and then present their research or results at the end of the year-long fellowship.
For Mota, acceptance into the program came with financial support and the opportunity to assist Crowell on a guaranteed basic income study. The study tracked 150 low-income families with children in Fresno and the nearby rural community of Huron, and the potential benefits on their lives after they received $500 monthly stipends from July 2024 through June 2025.
During fall 2025 Mota worked with Crowell to transcribe, translate, code and analyze detailed participant responses from surveys and focus groups, which were presented in a report this past December for the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission Board of Commissioners. The study showed program participants saw reductions in debt spending, fiscal stress and food insecurity; improved child-parent engagement (especially among new mothers); and positive impacts on job workloads and pursuit of training certifications.
“This project has pushed me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to develop new skills, confidence, and working with Dr. Amber Crowell was a really good opportunity to learn from her and gain new knowledge,” Mota said. “I enjoyed seeing how the families’ lives grew stronger as they became more financially stable. They often reported less stress from their jobs and a better ability to pay for rent, food, child care, gas or other important things they needed, like spending more time with their families.”
Many participants in the study were farmworkers and/or people of Mexican American heritage. As a bilingual native of Ensenada, Mexico, Mota first came to the U.S. five years ago looking for better opportunities and took a job working in almond orchards – giving him a personal connection to the project.
Mota graduated from Madera High School before enrolling at Fresno State. Crowell has been impressed with Mota’s ability to learn how to thoroughly evaluate the participant interviews.
“There haven’t been many guaranteed income studies like this that include rural and migrant participants, especially in the Central Valley, so Rafael’s bilingual skills were very important in helping us get accurate and detailed information and include the voices of Fresno’s agricultural worker population,” Crowell said. “You see him shine when he interacts with people. Rafael is very motivated to make a difference in our community, and I have seen him do that through his community-engaged work and his dedication to learning and strengthening his research skills.”
The College of Social Sciences Emerging Scholars Program is supported by multiple gifts to the college, including the Gilbert and Lillian Wilmer Endowed Scholarship. This year, the Emerging Scholars Program is a focus of Fresno State’s Day of Giving.
“Gifts like the Gilbert and Lillian Wilmer Endowed Scholarship created an opportunity for the college to think intentionally and creatively about how we can support students,” said Dr. Elizabeth A. Lowham, dean of the College of Social Sciences. “It gave us the freedom to think about a program with tremendous impact for students — how we partner students with faculty mentors to enhance career-ready skills, how we open up the hidden curriculum of success on campus and off, and how we create opportunities for students in the college. We are so excited about being able to tie philanthropy to student success in such a direct way.”
That funding is helping support a new round of projects taking shape this spring. Faculty are currently reviewing almost 70 student applicants for its second cohort after receiving 40 applicants a year ago.
Topics for the upcoming round include projects that are studying high-impact student learning practices at minority-serving institutions, Mexican migration trends in the Central Valley; polarization of elections, social and economic census demographic mapping of Asian Americans in the Central Valley, transportation citizen advisory committees, U.S. foreign aid program funding changes, and video and augmented reality displays on campus that promote American Indian cultural history.
Crowell’s project on guaranteed basic income research will also continue next year, and a new student will have the chance to work toward developing a proposal for a large-scale permanent guaranteed income program for Fresno County families.
The College of Social Sciences will celebrate the work and impact of the first cohort of the Emerging Scholars Program this spring, as faculty prepare to onboard a new cohort of students.
Fresno State’s annual 24-hour, online Day of Giving will be Wednesday, March 18. The College of Social Sciences relies on private financial support, such as funds raised from Day of Giving, to support student success. For questions about how to support College of Social Sciences students, contact Jeannie Neathery at jneathery@mail.fresnostate.edu or 559.278.5598. Visit fresnostate.dayofgiving.edu to learn how to support the College of Social Sciences.
