The Award & Eligibility

The Fellowship Award

Newcombe Fellows receive $31,000 for 12 months of full-time dissertation writing. (No half-year or partial awards are allowed.)

• 20 non-renewable fellowships of $31,000 will be awarded in the spring of 2024.
• Fellows’ graduate schools will be asked to waive tuition and fees while maintaining health insurance for Newcombe Fellows.
• Fellows become part of a network of more than 1,300 Newcombe Fellows leading the way in their various fields.

Eligibility

Eligible applicants for the 2024 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship must:

• be candidates for Ph.D. degrees in any field of study in the humanities and social sciences at accredited graduate schools in the United States. Candidates working on D.Min., law, Psy.D., Ed.D. and other professional degrees are not eligible.
• be ABD, and have completed all pre-dissertation requirements fulfilled by the application deadline November 15, 2023, including approval of the dissertation proposal.
• be in the writing stage of the dissertation. Usually, this means that fieldwork or other research is complete and writing has begun by the time of the award.
• expect to complete the dissertation between April 1, 2025 and August 31, 2026.
• have never held a similar national award for the final year of dissertation writing. Applicants who have won such awards as the AAUW, Ford, NAEd/Spencer, Mellon/ACLS, or Mellon-CES fellowship are not eligible.
• be in a humanities or social science department, writing on topics where ethical or religious values are a central concern.
• Prior applicants who did not receive the award when they first applied may reapply if their revised timeline meets Newcombe Fellowship guidelines for completion and defense.

Fellows’ Completion & Defense

Candidates will ideally expect to complete and defend their dissertation before August of the fellowship year. Recognizing, however, that various factors may affect a Fellow’s defense/graduation timeline, the Newcombe Fellowship allows leeway of up to one academic year after the academic year for which the fellowship is granted. For instance, a Newcombe Fellow who receives the fellowship in the spring of 2024 will hold the fellowship in the academic year 2024-25 and will ideally have completed and defended the dissertation by August of 2025. If the Fellow’s circumstances make this timeline impractical, they will complete and defend the dissertation by the end of the academic year 2025-2026. Funds are awarded for the Fellowship year only and should be expended in that year; there will be no additional Newcombe funding would support additional time.

Understanding that dissertation completion timelines may change or extend for various reasons, the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation and the Institute for Citizens & Scholars have revised their previous re-application policy. Prior applicants who did not receive the award when they first applied may now reapply if their revised timeline meets Newcombe Fellowship guidelines for completion and defense. Applicants who have already received funding from another national award for dissertation writing may not apply.

Conditions

Newcombe Fellows may not accept other awards which provide similar benefits, including fellowships such as the AAUW, Ford, NAEd/Spencer, Mellon/ACLS, or Mellon-CES fellowship. In rare cases, with the written permission of the director of the Newcombe Fellowship program, the Newcombe award may be combined with another award that offers some benefit uniquely significant to the Fellow’s project (for instance, access to international archives), provided that the funding associated with the award in question does not exceed 75% of Newcombe Fellowship funding. The Newcombe Fellowship may be supplemented by funding associated with additional local/institutional awards, however no combination of additional awards may exceed 75% of the Newcombe stipend. Any supplemental funding must receive the written permission of the program director.

The Newcombe Fellowship is intended to support doctoral students as they devote full-time effort to supplementary research activities and dissertation writing. With the understanding, however, that teaching, writing, research assistantships, or other paid work may support the development of a well-rounded curriculum vitae, Fellows may undertake up to 12 hours per week of paid work during their tenure of the Fellowship. Any such work must be in an area related to a Fellow’s field and/or specific to the Fellow’s doctoral research and career preparation (including teaching, research assistant positions, editorial work for a journal, etc.). The director of the program must provide written authorization for any such work. Permission to work beyond the 12 hours per week limit or to work in an area not related to the Fellow’s academic field must be authorized by the program director.