PLEASE NOTE: The application period for the 2010 Mellon fellowships is now closed and no application materials, including reference letters, are accepted following the deadline.
CLIR does not comment on the status of individual applications during the review period; the application system is therefore no longer open for applicants to review materials or receive application status updates. All applicants will be notified of their status by e-mail on April 1, 2010. Application instructions for the 2011 Mellon fellowships will be available in September 2010.
The information below contains instructions used during the 2010 fellowship application period and is for reference ONLY.
Contents:
Deadlines
- Complete applications must be submitted using CLIR's online application form no later than 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, November 13, 2009.
- Reference letters must be submitted directly by the reference providers via the online application system (see the Application Guidelines for details) no later than 5:00 pm Eastern time on November 13, 2009.
- Fellowship awards will be announced on April 1, 2010.
- Fellowship tenure will begin between June 1 and September 1, 2010, and end within 12 months of commencing.
Eligibility Requirements
Who is eligible to apply?
To be eligible, an applicant will—
- be enrolled in a doctoral program in a graduate school in the United States (master's thesis research is not eligible)
- complete all doctoral requirements except the dissertation and be ready to start research for it as early as June 1 and no later than September 1, 2010, with approval of the dissertation proposal no later than April 1, 2010
- plan to do dissertation research primarily in original source material in the holdings of archives, libraries, historical societies, museums, related repositories, or a combination
- write the dissertation and receive the Ph.D. degree in a field of the humanities or in a related element of the social sciences (candidates for the Ed.D, J.D., or D.D. degrees are not eligible).
An applicant may be of any nationality but must be enrolled in a U.S. graduate school and be studying here, not on a campus abroad even if operated by a U.S. institution.
Proposed research may be conducted at a single or multiple sites abroad, in the U.S., or both. Any relevant repository may be used, including government archives and private collections accessible to the applicant. Preference is given to applicants who will be studying away from their home institution.
Those who are conducting original source research using online sources in novel or innovative ways are eligible to apply for this fellowship.
Who is not eligible to apply?
- Those who will be significantly engaged in writing their dissertations during the fellowship tenure. This is a research fellowship. Students may apply even if they have started dissertation research or done some writing, but CLIR's awards may be used only for original source research that applicants still need to do. Awards will not be granted to applicants who request support for intermittent research trips combined with the writing of their dissertations.
- Those who will be conducting interviews and/or creating oral histories. This fellowship is not meant to support the creation of primary source material, such as oral histories. Applications which request support for research involving interviews or oral history creation will be considered ineligible, even if a part of the research period will also be spent conducting research in libraries and archives.
Fellowship Tenure and Conditions
- Fellowships must begin between June 1 and September 1, 2010 and end within 12 months of commencing.
- Fellowships cannot be renewed or extended.
- Fellows are expected to devote full time to their dissertation research without holding teaching or research assistantships or undertaking other paid work.
- Applicants may apply simultaneously for other fellowships, including other Mellon awards, but fellows may not hold other fellowships simultaneously with CLIR's.
- Fellows may use stipends to meet living expenses, travel costs, and other expenses that enable dissertation research to be carried out, but not to defray tuition.
- Fellows will make their own arrangements for lodging at and transportation to the repository or repositories in which they need to work. CLIR cannot provide assistance in obtaining visas.
Because part of the purpose of the fellowships is to help junior scholars gain experience with primary sources and with the institutions that provide access to them, and to help institutions gain understanding of the needs of junior scholars in the humanities, successful applicants will agree to three special provisions of the fellowship opportunity.
- First, prior to the fellowship period, all fellows are required to participate in an introductory workshop about using original sources and the institutions that hold them. The workshop is held in mid-May at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The fellowship program will cover all costs associated with fellows' attendance at the introductory workshop.
- Second, within one month of the end of the fellowship period, each fellow will send to CLIR an acceptable written analysis of the fellowship experience, covering such questions as these:
• What aspects of the repository were most helpful to the fellow in accomplishing research, and what obstacles or complications most hindered it?
• What additional measures might facilitate original source research in the fellow's field?
• How could graduate study best prepare scholars for such research?
• How could libraries and archives best make decisions about materials to acquire, preserve, publicize, and even digitize for meeting scholars' needs?
- Third, when fellows complete their fellowship periods, they will participate in a one-day symposium about their experiences. The symposium is held in mid-October at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. From such feedback, CLIR hopes to help archives and libraries increase their understanding of the needs of today's new scholars. The fellowship program will cover all costs associated with fellows' attendance at the post-fellowship symposium.
Application Contents
Applications and all accompanying documents must be submitted online using CLIR's online application form. No application materials will be accepted in hard copy. For information about specific items, please consult our Application Guidelines.
A complete application will consist of the following items:
- A fully complete and submitted online application form. To see an outline of the application form, click here.
- Transcripts covering all graduate study.
- Three letters of reference. All reference letters must be submitted by reference providers through the online application system.
Questions
If you have questions which are not answered below or in the Application Guidelines, please contact us by e-mail at mellon@clir.org. We regret that we cannot answer questions by telephone.
1. If I applied for a fellowship in previous years and did not receive one, may I apply again?
Yes.
2. If I will receive official approval of my dissertation proposal in April, but later than April 1st, may I apply for a fellowship?
Official approval of your dissertation proposal must be received by April 1st. If your proposal approval will be received after April 1st, you are not eligible to apply for a fellowship this year. There are no exceptions, for any reason.
3. If my institution provides a portfolio service which students are expected to use in lieu of obtaining original letters when applying for career positions or fellowships, may I submit such a reference portfolio instead of obtaining original letters?
CLIR will accept letters from a portfolio in place of original letters. All letters must be submitted by the institutional office through CLIR's online form.
4. My research involves human subjects; I will be conducting interviews and/or creating oral histories. Am I eligible to apply for this fellowship?
No. The fellowship is not meant to support the creation of primary source material, such as oral histories. Applications which outline research involving interviews or oral history creation will be considered ineligible, even if a part of the research period will also be spent conducting research in libraries and archives.
5. My research involves online sources. Am I eligible to apply for this fellowship?
This fellowship supports research in original sources. Accordingly, those who are conducting original source research in born-digital sources such as websites, wikis, blogs, etc. may apply for this fellowship under the same terms and conditions as applicants working in more traditional repositories. Research that uses digital surrogates for existing manuscript and print materials is not eligible for this fellowship.
6. My reference provider has not received, or has misplaced, his/her e-mail message containing the instructions for logging into the online system. What do I do?
You may contact us at mellon@clir.org and request that the e-mail be re-sent.
Alternatively, you (or your reference provider) may visit the main log-in page for reference providers:
https://www.clir.org/apps/index.cfm?action=login.refProviderLogin. Click the "Forgot my password" link, enter the reference provider's e-mail address, and a message containing the log-in information will be sent directly to his/her e-mail. (This message will not contain the reference provider guidelines, but only the log-in information.)
7. My reference provider tells me that s/he has submitted a reference letter, but the application system still indicates a letter has not yet been submitted.
Try refreshing the page to clear the cache.
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