Applicants must have completed their comprehensive examination and be in the final stages of writing their dissertation to be eligible to apply for an award. 

The main focus of work to be accomplished during the award period is completion of the doctoral dissertation.  

Awardees must register for at least 1 s.h. credit during the fall semester of the award. Recipients of a CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowship may not combine the award with any other UI fellowship, assistantship, or paid work during the award period without permission from the CLAS Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure, nor may they hold an external dissertation fellowship concurrently.

Awardees must register for at least 1 s.h. credit during the fall semester of the award. Your department will provide you with a scholarship to cover the cost of 1 s.h. and 50% of the mandatory fees.

One fellow per PhD program each year.

If an individual who is awarded a fellowship fails to complete all requirements for a spring graduation in the academic year of the award, the unit will be ineligible to submit applications for a CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowship during the subsequent award period.

Awardees must submit a progress report of 250-500 words to Catherine Moore on the first Friday of September of the award period. The report must be signed by the advisor.

Eligible students should complete the CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowship Application and their one-page CV and send it to their DGS along with the Thesis Advisor support letter.  DGSs should verify the accuracy of the information, supervise the departmental evaluation process, prepare the DGS nomination letter, and email the results to Catherine Moore with the subject line: CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowship Application.

The award application period for AY 2025-26 awards is now open. The due date for applications is Monday, January 27, 2025, from departments to the CLAS Dean's Office.

Individuals will not apply directly to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; applications must be routed through the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) in the department or school in which the student is pursuing the PhD.  

The applications are collated by each unit and include the following materials, submitted as a single pdf in the following order:

1. The application form.
2. A letter of support from the Thesis Advisor of no more than 2 pages that discusses the project’s significance to the field, progress to date, work to be done during the fellowship period, and the feasibility of timeline to completion. Applicants are strongly encouraged to share their application materials with the advisor when requesting the advisor letter.
3. A one-page CV listing the applicant’s most significant contributions to research, teaching, and professional service.
4. A brief letter of endorsement (no more than 2 pages) from the DGS or their designee in the case of a COI. This letter should report the number of semesters in which the nominee has held Teaching Assistantships, Research Assistantships, or Fellowships, as well as the number of semesters, if any, in which the student was not funded. In the case of more than one application from the same PhD program, the DGS must rank the applications from that program in order of preference and describe the reasons for their ranking. 

All completed applications will be evaluated, discussed, and ranked by the CLAS Associate Deans. Please write to a general scholarly audience.

The ADs make their final recommendation to the Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure who notifies Fellowship recipients, DGSs, and DEOs of the results by late February.