University of Maryland Flagship Fellowships
Flagship Fellowships are multi-year enhancement awards to be added to fellowship/assistantship offers made by graduate programs. Each enhancement award may total $40,000 over its multi-year duration. The goal is to award ten Flagship Fellowships per year, reaching a steady state of approximately forty Flagship Fellows. The expectation is that Flagship Fellowships will help our graduate programs to compete successfully for superlative students, will advance campus diversity objectives, and will contribute to improving degree completion and time-to-degree rates. In the first year of the competition, eight outstanding students were recruited to the University of Maryland under this program.
Nominations for the second Flagship Fellowship competition will be due in the Graduate School by Friday, February 1, 2008. Programs will be notified of decisions before the end of February.
Please direct inquiries to Associate Dean Mary Ann Ottinger, The Graduate School, at maotting@umd.edu or ex. 5-4205.
GUIDELINES FOR FLAGSHIP FELLOWSHIPS
Stipends
Flagship Fellowship enhancements may total $40,000 per student over the duration of the award. At the discretion of the individual program, these awards may be made for four years at $10,000 per year or for five years at $8,000 per year.
Flagship Fellowships are enhancement awards added to base fellowship/assistantship packages provided by programs to Flagship Fellows. These base packages must extend at least for the duration of the Flagship Fellowship, and must meet or exceed guidelines for minimum stipends for fellowships and/or assistantships set annually by the Graduate School; it is expected that these base packages will be at least comparable to those normally offered by the program. Programs must commit to providing these base packages at the time of application for a Flagship Fellowship.
Flagship Fellowships are awarded to programs for specific students and are not transferable to other students. Should the nominated candidate decline the Fellowship, or should a student holding a Flagship Fellowship graduate from or leave his/her program with enhancement funding still outstanding, the Graduate School will return unused funds to the Flagship Fellowship pool.
Eligibility
Candidates must be students with exceptional qualifications and with clear promise for outstanding performance in doctoral study.
Candidates must be entering doctoral programs or masters programs that are part of or lead directly into doctoral programs. Students entering terminal masters degree programs are not eligible.
Nominations
All doctoral programs are eligible to nominate candidates; a program may nominate no more than two candidates.
Nomination packages from programs should include a Flagship Fellowship cover sheet; a letter of nomination from the program’s Chair or DGS, or the major professor with whom the student would work, addressing the student’s exceptional qualifications and promise, including what distinguishes the student from other top applicants to the program and what contributions the student is likely to make to the program and the field; a description of the fellowship/assistantship support being offered by the program to the student; the nominee’s complete application to the program. Please submit twelve (12) collated copies of the nomination package.
In making nominations, programs are urged to consider the University’s commitment to diversity.
Selection
A committee with broad disciplinary representation, appointed by the Graduate School, will serve as the selection committee.
Selection decisions will be based on excellence, understood as a convergence of the nominee’s grades and scores, statement of purpose, prior research or other original scholarship, letters of recommendation, and the program’s letter of support.
The selection committee will choose several alternates in addition to the nominees initially offered Fellowships, in the event that some Fellowships are declined.
The cohort of awardees, it is expected, will reflect the University’s commitment to diversity, including disciplinary diversity.
Recruitment Funds
It is expected that the program will actively recruit a successful nominee, including inviting the nominee to campus. Each award of a Fellowship to a program, accordingly, will carry up to $1,000 for reimbursement of expenses associated with recruitment of a nominee.
Progress Reports
The program awarded a Flagship Fellowship is expected to report on the status of its recruitment of the candidate in a timely fashion. In the event that the recruitment is not successful, the Graduate School can then offer the Fellowship to an alternate nominee, who may or may not be an applicant to the same program.
Programs will submit a brief annual report to the Graduate School on the progress of their Flagship Fellow(s). Flagship Fellows also will submit a brief annual progress report. The program and the Graduate School will confer regarding any Fellow who experiences significant academic difficulty during the year and will establish benchmarks for monitoring the student’s progress. Continuation of the Flagship Fellowship will be contingent upon the student’s resumption of timely and satisfactory progress.
Because the Flagship Fellowships are intended for exceptional students, continuation of the Fellowship from year to year is predicated on the student’s making timely and satisfactory progress to degree.
