13-March-2018 SBS Summer 2018 Dissertation Fellowships Due date: Thursday, April 5 by 5pm SBS, in collaboration with the Graduate College, will provide summer fellowships of up to $5,000 for doctoral students who have completed all degree requirements other than the dissertation. Based on available resources, we expect to award 12 fellowships. The goal is to enable meritorious students with financial need to expedite completion of their PhDs. ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS Registered majors in SBS PhD programs who are advanced to candidacy and have defended a dissertation proposal (or will do so by Thursday, May 10). Documented financial need, on the basis of a completed FAFSA (or equivalent financial need calculation for international students). Note that documentation of need does NOT need to be filed with the application; but applicants should be prepared to provide it upon request if offered an award. Fellows are expected to work full-time on their dissertations during the summer. If employed, recipients may work no more than a total of 100 hours over the course of the summer (equivalent to max of 5 weeks total employment, can be partially and unevenly distributed). Applicants may not have previously received a summer dissertation fellowship from SBS. REVIEW CRITERIA Merit of the dissertation project: clarity and significance of research questions, methods, and expected scholarly contribution. Student qualifications. Potential for summer fellowship to expedite time to degree. Feasibility and specificity of summer work plan. Feasibility of timeline for dissertation completion. APPLICATION MATERIALS Cover sheet (including signed promise regarding summer employment). 1-page summary of the dissertation project. 1-page plan of work, to include: summary of dissertation progress; work plan during summer fellowship, proposed timeline for degree completion; and explanation of how summer fellowship funding will expedite dissertation completion. 1-page summary of previous funding (internal and/or external) for nominee s doctoral research, as well as pending applications for summer fellowship or grant support. 2-page CV 1-2 page nomination letter from the advisor. The letter must address the applicant s eligibility as well as address review criteria.
REPORTING REQUIREMENT The student s advisor must ensure that a brief report is submitted to SBS s Associate Dean of Research on the objectives and results of the funded summer. If the original plan changes, an explanation should be included. The dean s office will compile a summary report on these fellowships for the Graduate College. The report is due by September 14, 2018. SELECTION PROCESS Applications will be reviewed and prioritized for funding by a committee assembled by SBS Dean s Office and SBSRI, and consisting of both administrators and faculty who have experience working with SBS doctoral students. Awards will be announced by Friday, April 20. If eligibility changes during the summer, funds must be reimbursed (e.g. due to change in employment status, or receipt of equivalent fellowship funds mitigating need). APPLICATION PROCESS Proposal materials should be emailed as attachment to: SBSGFSu.r9uepv2dcyrj9tph@u.box.com Student application materials should be submitted as a single pdf, with the file name LASTNAME-FIRSTNAME-SF18APP.pdf Advisor letters should be submitted as a separate pdf, with the file name: LASTNAME-FIRSTNAME-SF18LET.pdf
TEMPLATE FOR 2018 SUMMER DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION COVER SHEET Student name: Student ID: Student PhD major field: Student email address: Date of dissertation proposal defense: Number of dissertation units completed by May 2017: Advisor name: Advisor title: Advisor department: Advisor email address: PROMISE REGARDING SUMMER 2018 EMPLOYMENT I,, will not work in paid employment more than 10 hours per week in Summer 2017 if I receive an SBS Summer Dissertation Fellowship. Funding provided through this Fellowship will support activities related to the completion of my dissertation. Signature Date
FAQS Why is time to degree a focus of this competition? The source of funds is an allocation from the Graduate College to SBS. The Graduate College prefers that we allocate these funds so as to encourage expedited time to degree. What is the rationale for the 100 hour limit on summer work? Ideally students would work exclusively on their dissertations as summer fellows. We encourage awardees units to facilitate release from summer work duties where possible, but recognize that this is not always feasible. SBS is unable to run the competition until late spring due to annual uncertainty in funding availability. We allow for part-time work so as not to disadvantage students who cannot wait for news of fellowship funding to seek employment, and so that units can plan summer assistantships. The 100 hour maximum is sufficient to allow a student to teach a single summer session course, or to work up to.25 FTE over the course of the summer as a research assistant (the two most common sources of summer funds for graduate students). Why do you allow students who have not yet or only recently defended a dissertation proposal to apply for a fellowship? Shouldn t this be restricted to students whose dissertations are advanced, given that the aim is to expedite completion? These dissertations are intended for students whose dissertations are truly launched and who are poised to engage in expedited summer dissertation work. However, reviewers cannot infer this from date of the proposal defense they rely on the full application. SBS units vary greatly in the stage at which proposal defenses are held. In some, dissertation proposals are held at an early stage to position students to launch pilot research so they can apply for external funding to support extended fieldwork. In others, the dissertation defense is held at an advanced stage of development, such that students typically hold the final oral defense within a semester. Furthermore, the timing at which summer fellowship funding is most impactful for overall time to degree varies depending on research design. Do I need to provide a budget? What are allowable expenses? Is this a writing fellowship, or will you fund field research, trips to archives, data analysis, etc.? This is a lump-sum fellowship, not a grant, so a line-item budget is not needed. Your narrative should describe how the fellowship will be impactful, e.g. this could include freeing up time for writing, funding a trip to the field that could otherwise be delayed.
How is need taken into account? Need is an eligibility criterion but not a merit review criterion. Awardees will be required to document need based on Graduate College procedures before fellowship funds can be released. However, we will not attempt to adjudicate who is neediest in determining to whom to award fellowships. Most SBS graduate students meet the Graduate College s formal definition of need. Therefore we are not asking for documentation prior to application, but we will ask for it of recommended awardees. We recommend that you verify your eligibility prior to applying. For links to eligibility criteria and forms. elect Graduate College Fellowships at this link for details: http://grad.arizona.edu/funding/opportunities/graduatecollege-fellowships-gcf). Whom do I ask for help? Please direct questions about documentation of financial need to your unit s business manager or to the Graduate College. Direct other questions to Jane Zavisca, SBS Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Studies (janez@email.arizona.edu)