Fellowship Opportunities

SHEAR Mellon Summer Seminar
Undergraduate Fellowships in Early American History
2008

Applications are limited to ONE per institution FROM PRIVATE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES ONLY
Seminar dates: June 2 - 22, 2008

$2,000 Undergraduate Fellowship stipends, plus travel and living expenses, dedicated to supporting ten students from private liberal arts colleges for three weeks of summer study at the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for the Study of Early America just before the beginning of their senior years. Fellows will complete preliminary work on what will become, by the time they graduate, honors projects in American history, 1776-1861.

$400 (or more) Undergraduate Travel and Research Fellowships and participation in a Seminar Website support further student research and critical dialogue subsequent to the Seminar. Critiques of initial thesis drafts by distinguished outside scholars.

Ten stipends dedicated to supporting the participation in the last five days of the Seminar of the home campus Faculty Advisor of each of the Undergraduate Fellows. Advisors’ participation in the Seminar is designed to sustain continuity as the students’ research projects continue on campus in the senior year. Advisors are also encouraged to pursue their own research interests while in Philadelphia.

While it is very important that applicants be able to explain clearly the focus and substance of their historical interests, it is not expected that they will have previously defined the exact topics of their honors projects. Instead, the Seminar’s major purpose is to assist students in the initial definition and development of such projects.
Individual work in the Seminar involves the completion of a formal prospectus and detailed plan of research for each student’s individual project. At the same time, common readings, discussions and other group exercises will be employed to develop skills in primary research, historiography, thesis development, critique and oral/written presentation.
As they work on individual projects, Undergraduate Fellows will be assisted in taking fullest possible advantage of the rich intellectual and archival resources of the Seminars co-sponsors, the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

2008 Seminar Directors will be Richard S. Newman, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Tamara Plakins Thornton, SUNY, Buffalo.

APPLICATION Guidelines are available at: http://www.shear.org/mellon/applicationguide.htm

APPLICATION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 15, 2008
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, Contact: stewart@macalester.edu or areeder@macalester.edu

James B. Stewart, Project Director, Macalester College

PLEASE FORWARD TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN APPLYING