Faculty Fellowships

In order to encourage excellence in scholarship and creative work, the College annually awards prize fellowships. The value of the fellowships is equal to ten percent of the average salary of the Mount Holyoke College teaching faculty (as most recently reported to the AAUP, rounded to the nearest hundred dollars). In 2008-2009, a one-semester faculty fellowship was $10,000. Fellowships are paid as salary, through payroll. The good news is that they are benefits eligible; the bad news is that income taxes will be withheld.

An application consists of the following:
• a brief (1200 words or less) description of the proposed project on the application form
• a current curriculum vitae
• at least two letters of support from references outside the College, addressing your research accomplishments in general and the specific merits of the proposed research project.

When requesting letters of support, please send your referees the following explanation:

Mount Holyoke awards internal fellowships to help faculty members pursue scholarly work while on leave. We cannot always support every worthy project. The faculty grants committee is an interdisciplinary group. Your letter will help us to understand the scholarly currency and value of the proposed project. We realize that this is an imposition of your time. We do not need a detailed critique, but a few sentences attesting to the value of the project and the applicant’s previous work, if applicable, would be most helpful. You may, of course, send the outside evaluators a more detailed description of your work than the 1200 word application you submit to the committee.

The application -- the original plus six copies of the first two items if submitting on paper-- is due in the Dean of Faculty's Office on October 16, 2009. The letters of support should be sent directly to the Dean's office to arrive on or before the same date. These letters can be submitted electronically as well to mheyer@mtholyoke.edu. If submitting the application online, the curriculum vitae needs to be submitted separately.

The Faculty Grants Committee judges proposals on the scholarly or creative merit of the work proposed and the likelihood of successful completion or substantial progress within the fellowship period. Since the Faculty Grants Committee is an interdisciplinary group, your proposal should be written for scholars who are not specialists in your field. In preparing your proposal, you should follow standards of good practice in proposal writing. These include:

• Identifying the specific goal(s) and central question(s) of the research.
• Describing, if appropriate, the specific methods you will use to address your question.
• Illustrating how your project advances your scholarly or creative work.
• Presenting a convincing case that the research project is feasible, given the time available – if the project is, for example, part of a book, how does this specific piece fit into your longer term goals?
• Stating how you will present the results of your research: journal articles, books, performances, etc.

Please be clear and please respect the 1200 word limit.
Application forms:

For paper submission

For on-line submission