Internal Dissertation-Year Fellowships

Franke, Harper, Mellon, Provost's, Whiting | Vigneron | Departments and Centers

Dissertation-year fellowships are designed to help students complete the writing of their dissertation in the final year of graduate study. Students are notified of divisional competitions by email. Actual competition deadlines are posted on the student calendar. Students apply through their departments for many of these awards and the Dean of Students office manages the competitions, as detailed below.

Franke, Harper, Mellon, Provost's, Whiting

Terms: The University and the Division of the Humanities sponsors several dissertation-year fellowships, which are some of the highest honors awarded by the University to graduate students. The fellowships are the Franke Institute, the William Rainey Harper, the Mellon Foundation, the Provost's, and the Whiting dissertation-year fellowships. Students are nominated by their departments for these honors, and the Dean of Students office manages the competitions.

Eligibility: Students must have been formally admitted to candidacy at the time of nomination. Franke, Harper, and Whiting fellowships may not be held by students who are beyond the tenth year in their program. Provost's Fellowships may not be held by students who are beyond the eighth year in their program, or in cases of students who entered a PhD program with a master's degree from another university and who received at least one year's credit toward their program requirements for that work, their seventh year in their program. Mellon Fellowships may not be held by students who are beyond the sixth year in their program, or in cases of students who entered a PhD program with a master's degree from another university and who received at least one year's credit toward their program requirements for that work, their fifth year in their program. For further details and other conditions, please check with your department.

Vigneron

Terms: The Vigneron endowment was established to provide dissertation-year fellowships awards to promising PhD candidates in French language and/or culture (e.g. music, art history, film).

Eligibility: Students must have been formally admitted to candidacy at the time of nomination and may not be held by students who are beyond the tenth year in their program. Preference is given to students in Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, but students from other divisional departments will also be considered.

Application: Eligible students should let their advisors know that they are interested in being nominated for this fellowship. Further, they should talk to someone central in their department for departmental procedures for the nomination process. The dossier for each student should include the following supporting documents: (1) letters from three members of the students dissertation committee, (2) a copy of the nominee's dissertation proposal, (3) a table of contents and current completion status of each chapter, (4) a curriculum vitae (CV), and (5) a copy of one approved chapter of the nominee's dissertation.

Deadline: Department nominations are due to the Dean of Students office in mid-April.

Departments and Centers

Some departments award dissertation-year fellowships directly, and students should contact their departments for more information. The Center for Gender Studies, the Center for East Asian Studies, and the Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture offer fellowships that may interest Humanities students.