Michigan State University senior Jasmine Jordan, an Honors College Political Science senior with a minor in African and African American Studies (AAAS), who grew up in Detroit, has been named a Gates-Cambridge Scholar.

Jordan also was a national finalist for the highly competitive Rhodes, Mitchell, and Marshall scholarships.

I’m really glad I took the chance because now I get to study criminology for a year, with such an amazing scholarship. It still doesn’t feel 100% real.

Jasmine Jordan, Honors College Political Science senior and AAAS minor

“I was so surprised! I am especially grateful for the professors who went through this whole process with me,” Jordan said. “I’m really glad I took the chance because now I get to study criminology for a year, with such an amazing scholarship. It still doesn’t feel 100% real.”

The scholarship will support Jordan as she pursues her Masters of Philosophy in Criminological Research at the University of Cambridge. The Gates-Cambridge Scholarship is among the most competitive in the world. According to the Gates-Cambridge Foundation, more than 600 students applied for this round of awards, and Jordan was among the 95 shortlisted as a finalist. On Feb. 8, Gates-Cambridge announced that Jordan was one of only 24 U.S. scholars to be offered a place at Cambridge.

Jordan is an alumna of Renaissance High School. When she first came to MSU in 2016, she garnered faculty attention almost immediately.

[Jasmine Jordan is] A thinker of rare clarity, a gifted writer, a courteous but tenacious advocate, and a fierce defender of civil rights.

John Waller, Director of the Social Science Scholars Program

“A thinker of rare clarity, a gifted writer, a courteous but tenacious advocate, and a fierce defender of civil rights,” is how John Waller, Director of the Social Science Scholars Program, housed in the College of Social Science, describes Jordan. “Indicative of Jasmine Jordan’s excellence is the fact that her selection as a Gates-Cambridge Scholar surprised no one who has taught her at MSU.”

Jordan is an Honors Research Scholar in the Honors College. She also is a member of the Urban Educator Cohort Program and is minoring in Educational Studies in the College of Education.

Jordan plans to research the causes, rates, and effects of incarceration across counties with a view to better understand the exceptionalism of American penal policy, and to dedicate her career to “making the U.S. criminal justice system more rational, equitable, and humane,” she wrote.

The Gates-Cambridge award was created in 2000 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for students of “outstanding intellectual ability” who can “build a global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.”

(Written by Karessa Weir and originally published on the College of Social Sciences website)