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• Pre-Doctoral Fellows Program

Pre-Doctoral Fellows Program

In defense of a growing void in university hiring thanks to the current economic environment, Peabody is offering its Ph.D. candidates the option to continue their study for up to two additional years.

The new Peabody Pre-Doctoral Fellows Program is geared toward Ph.D. students who have defended their dissertations but may be experiencing difficulty finding a faculty position in a dwindling job market. The program will allow qualifying Ph.D. students to continue their education while working on further professional development.

Faculty positions once open have been pulled out of the job market and many universities across the county have frozen faculty hires or are cutting faculty positions. Peabody has invested a great deal of resources into mentoring these students for competitive positions, and it is to our and their benefit to prepare them to be the strongest candidates available when those jobs begin to open up again.

The program will involve full-time effort by students in the following four areas for up to two years:

• Scholarship of Teaching: Advanced opportunities for substantive teaching responsibilities that also work toward a certificate of teaching from the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching.
• Research Apprenticeship: Collaboration with a Peabody faculty member in their program of research that will result in publication within the program's time frame.
• Systematic Advanced Methods Training: Experienced through existing coursework or other proposed independent study, that would advance the student's skills and expertise in their chosen field of research.
• Writing for Publication: Developing a plan for publishing the participant's dissertation research as well as other manuscripts or project underway.

Peabody's goal is to have Ph.D. students who are more competitive when they enter the job market and better situated for a more prestigious offer.

Benefits of Fellowships:

In addition to the benefits of advanced training as described above, the fellows will receive a monthly stipend of $1,500, health insurance, and activity fees. Students must continuously enroll in the 3930 Dissertation Hours course offered through their departments. Their fellowship plan will serve as the basis of judging progress and the grade of "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" for that course. A grade of "satisfactory" is needed to remain in the program.

Eligibility:

Peabody Ph.D. students who are seeking faculty positions at national research universities are eligible to apply for the program. To begin the fellowship, students must have successfully defended their dissertation but have not yet been awarded a degree. To maintain the fellowship, students must submit a progress report at the beginning of the last month of each semester and earn grades of "satisfactory" in 3930 courses.

Students who have defended their dissertation and not yet used the full amount of their funded period of support in the program should confer with their department chair and continue with that funding option. The funding for these fellowships begins after departmental support ends. However, the training process described for the fellows may also be used by students under other funding mechanisms, with the approval of the faculty member with whom they are working and the department chair.

Those who have defended their dissertation proposal may start the application process, in preparation to begin the fellowship after dissertation defense. In order to retain pre-doctoral status, students are expected to complete their dissertation and all changes requested by the committee, and then hold the dissertation until they are ready to graduate. At that time, they will file with the Graduate School their dissertation and intent to graduate form. Once that takes place, students will be graduating from Vanderbilt at the end of that semester and will no longer be eligible as a pre-doctoral student.

This fellowship is not a way to supplement other job options. Students with funding from other mechanisms (e.g., departmental, research grants) may apply for fellow status only if they have no more than 20 hours of support to allow them the time to participate in all four of the program dimensions.

Application Process:

The fellowship positions are competitive and require an application, the nomination by a faculty member and the director of graduate studies from the applicant's department, and approval by Deans Heflinger or Hogge.

The application will address the student's current status and planned actions toward each of the four components described above, with a specific timeline. In addition, the student will describe their current job search activities and plans for the time period. A current CV should accompany the application as well as a copy of the signed dissertation title page (unless this is pending, in which case a statement by the dissertation committee chair will suffice). While the students may not require support for the entire timeline originally planned, the application may address up to a 12-month timeline with a possible extension.

Applications must be submitted a minimum of one month prior to the requested start date. The applications for deans' reviews should be submitted by April 1, for funding to begin in May; July 1, for funding to begin in August; and Dec. 1, for funding to begin in January. For other funding cycles, an explanation will be needed (e.g., research grant support may not extend throughout a semester).

For additional information, email Craig Anne Heflinger, associate dean for graduate education, at c.heflinger@vanderbilt.edu.