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Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship Processing Guidelines

Award Year 2013-2014

Contents

Appendices

Description of Award

The Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) award recognizes and supports the most academically excellent PhD students who have achieved dissertator status at UWM or who will achieve dissertator status during the 2013-14 academic year. Students are nominated for this award by their programs and compete with other nominees from across the university. Fellowship award decisions are made by a university faculty committee.

Eighteen Distinguished Dissertation Fellowships will be awarded annually to exceptional UWM doctoral students who have achieved dissertator status or who will achieve dissertator status during the 2013-14 academic year. Awards are for full-time study only. The academic fellowship stipend for 2013-2014 is $16,500. In addition, recipients will benefit from a $1,000 travel award that will accompany each fellowship award. The money should be spent in accordance with UWM travel regulations by the end of the fiscal year following the year in which the fellowship award is held. The money will be spent on travel to present at a major national or international conference in the student's discipline. Fellows receive coverage of resident graduate tuition, a remission of the out-of-state portion of the tuition (if applicable), low-cost comprehensive health insurance and other benefits

Eligibility

  1. Dissertator Status: Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship applicants must have completed all major and minor coursework, passed preliminary examinations, completed PhD residency requirements, and attain dissertator status by the end of the fellowship award year. DDF award will be paid at the Distinguished Graduate Student Fellowship rate until dissertator status is attained.
  2. Concurrent Fellowship/Scholarship Support: No other scholarship or fellowship may be held concurrently with a Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship (with the exception of the Chancellor's Graduate Student Award).
  3. Maximum Dissertation Support: A Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship may be held for a maximum of one academic year. No current or previous awardee may be nominated for further support.
  4. Concurrent Employment: Concurrent employment of Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship recipients is limited to the following:
    • University employment of a maximum of 25% TA, PA, or RA.
    • Student hourly of up to 15 hours per week.

Selection of Nominees

For the sake of these fellowships, a “graduate degree program” is defined more broadly than the UW System definition to include any graduate program that meets both of the following criteria:

  1. Student must make specific application to the degree program on their applications to the Graduate School or department.
  2. Students cannot transfer out of the program without making explicit application to another program, even within the same department or unit.

If a program offers both the master’s and PhD degrees, it is considered a single graduate program and can nominate only two students.

If you are a program that wants to be able to nominate students and you meet both criteria 1 and 2 above, please e-mail Ginny Stoffel (stoffelv@uwm.edu), chair of the Graduate Fellowship Subcommittee, by December 7, 2012, requesting up to two nominees for each “graduate degree program” broader definition. Provide one or more of the criteria that verifies criteria 1 and 2 above:

  • Copy of student’s admission application.
  • Copy of your program admission requirements from the Graduate Bulletin.
  • Note the use of multiple admission committees, if applicable.

Please put “Graduate Fellowships Subcommittee request” in the subject line of the e-mail message and send to stoffelv@uwm.edu by December 7, 2012.

Selection Criteria

Distinguished Dissertation Fellowships are highly competitive. Fellowships are awarded on the basis of the applicant's previous academic record, scholarly and other achievements, status towards degree*, and faculty recommendations.

*See Eligibility; please be sure that your degree program's nominees have achieved dissertator status or will do so during the fellowship award year.

Letter of Recommendation

Each applicant has been instructed to secure a letter of recommendation from his/her major professor. The letter must be on your degree program's letterhead stationery.

Graduate Degree Program Evaluation of Nominees

Complete a Graduate Degree Program Evaluation for each nominee (Appendix A).

Graduate Degree Program Nomination Instructions

Before submitting your degree program's nomination, please make sure that you have followed the instructions and have included all the necessary documentation. All documents should be submitted in a Microsoft Word format.

  1. Verify all information submitted by your nominee.
  2. Once verified, attach the following documents to an e-mail message:
    • Nominee's application. This should be filled out completely and all information will have been verified by your degree program.
    • One letter of recommendation written by major professor (on letterhead stationery).
    • Graduate degree program's letter of evaluation and support (Appendix A).
  3. E-mail the documents as attachments to fellowship@uwm.edu no later than February 8, 2013. This is the deadline date. No nominations will be accepted after February 8, 2013.
  4. By return e-mail, you will receive confirmation that the Graduate School is in receipt of your nomination(s).

Degree Program Follow-Up to Applicants

After you submit your nominated applicants to the Graduate School, please notify all of your degree program's fellowship applicants (non-nominated as well as nominated applicants) of the status of their fellowship applications.

Important Dates

February 8, 2013 Deadline for submission of dissertation fellowship nominations from graduate degree programs
Approximately March 18, 2013 Announcement of awards

For questions regarding any of these procedures, please contact the Graduate School at 229-7177 or 229-7188 (e-mail: fellowship@uwm.edu).

Page last updated on: 02/13/2013