Any doctoral program in the Rackham Graduate School may nominate doctoral candidates for this award. Barbour Scholarship recipients will be selected from the Predoctoral Fellowship awardees. To be eligible, students must be advanced to candidacy by the Rackham Office of Academic Records and Dissertations no later than January 20, 2022 (for Winter 2022 or earlier).

Award: A minimum of eighty-five (85) Rackham Predoctoral Fellowships will be available for 2022-2023. Approximately 240 students are nominated each year. The fellowship provides three semesters of support that may begin with spring/summer or fall semester 2022. Rackham Predoctoral Fellows are expected to work full-time toward the completion of degree requirements throughout the period of the award. Fellowships include a stipend of $34,794 (currently), candidacy tuition, and required fees for twelve months. GradCare health and dental insurance will be provided during the fellowship period. Students may receive only one award. Predoctoral funding cannot be used at the same time as other Rackham-funded programs (e.g., Sweetland Dissertation Writing Institute).

Eligibility: Applicants must be advanced to candidacy by January 20, 2022, and must be nominated by SEAS.

Selection Criteria:

• Quality of the nominee’s personal statement, including the research plan, progress on the project, and scholarly significance of the dissertation research
• Results of early research or scholarship in graduate studies, as represented (e.g., through article publication, conference presentation, or other scholarly products such as websites, performances, exhibitions, etc.)
• Perspectives of the program (as gained from the Statement of Student Achievement and Potential) and supporting faculty/scholars (as gained from the letters of recommendation)
• Excellence in graduate teaching and/or pedagogy/mentoring/professional leadership and service

SEAS Application Process: Students interested in being nominated submit the following items into a single .pdf document to https://tinyurl.com/y4hr8n64 no later than 9:00 AM on Monday, November 1, 2021. Title the document as Lastname.Predoctoral.pdf. The SEAS Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, in conjunction with the SEAS Scholarship Committee, will determine the three (3) nominees that are forwarded to Rackham. Once decisions have been made, applicants will be notified of their status.

• Current CV
• Personal Statement (1,500-word maximum) should describe your dissertation and any additional information you wish to bring to the attention of the selection committee. Fellowship committees place a strong emphasis on this statement. The statement should be written with an interdisciplinary faculty review panel in mind. The statement must:
  • Address the importance of your work in the beginning 2-3 sentences
  • The theoretical framework of the dissertation
  • Specific aims
  • Methodologies (how you will conduct the research)
  • Originality
  • Significance and contribution of the project to your field 
• Copy of the dissertation title and abstract (150-word maximum, plain text only)
• Arrange for a faculty member to support your request by sending a nomination statement (2-3 substantial paragraphs, maximum 1 page) by the 9:00 AM Monday, November 1, 2021 deadline to Mark Romanowski, markroma@umich.edu, describing your outstanding qualities and appropriateness for nomination. If more than 3 eligible students are nominated, SEAS Scholarship Committee will rank them, so the faculty nomination statement must include the following detailed information:
  • Specific anticipated PhD completion date
  • Describe the uniqueness of the research and the contribution that will be made to the area of study
  • Provide information on publications and professional presentations, if any
  • Describe the student’s service to the SEAS/U-M community