Graduate College Fellowships & Awards

In the last year, philanthropic foundations announced the elimination of four significant fellowship competitions for dissertation research and completion. Yet, following a global pandemic during which international travel was grounded, our students have an even greater need for funds for fieldwork. The Fellowship for International Research (FIR) seeks to fill this gap on a small, hyper-local scale albeit with global intentions.

• Full description and instructions.

Acknowledging the lack of diversity in faculty around the country, we wanted to build a program at UIC to recruit and support outstanding underrepresented PhD students, who are interested in pursuing careers as faculty members.Our intent is to support these students with competitive funding packages, skills and professional development opportunities and mentoring in order to ensure their success in graduate school and in their future careers. Nomination by the academic program is required.

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The goal of the Access to Excellence Fellowship is to increase the number of students from historically underrepresented groups in graduate education who enter careers as researchers and college faculty. Historically underrepresented groups include: African American, Latinx, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islanders.

Formerly the Abraham Lincoln Fellowship, the Access to Excellence Fellowship (AF) has two rounds of applications: recruitment and retention. Both require a nomination by the academic program.

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University Fellowships seek to recruit outstanding students newly admitted to terminal master’s and PhD programs under the auspices of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois Chicago. Applicants must be nominated by their academic program/department.

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The Dean’s Scholar Fellowship is a one-year, non-renewable award presented by the Dean of the Graduate College in recognition of a student’s scholarly achievement. The award is intended to provide the most distinguished, advanced-level graduate students with a period of time dedicated solely to the completion of their programs. The Dean’s Scholar competition is open to (a) doctoral students who have passed the Graduate College-required Preliminary Examination and are well into their dissertation work, and (b) MFA students who have passed their second-semester review. Nominations must come from the program.

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Established by the Illinois General Assembly and signed as Public Act 093-0862 on August 4, 2004, the DFI provides fellowships to students pursuing post-baccalaureate degrees as part of the state’s effort to diversify the faculties and professional staffs at Illinois higher education institutions. The Graduate College’s Assistant Dean for Diversity administers this program on behalf of the university.

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The Graduate College’s Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) has served over one thousand outstanding underrepresented minority college students over more than three decades. The eight-week, faculty-supervised experience introduces students to academic research, graduate admissions, graduate study, and careers in academia. The SROP Early Admission Graduate Fellowship recruits and supports SROP alumni entering a graduate program at UIC.

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The late Professor Emeritus Kevin Barnhurst and Richard Doherty were both instrumental members of the department of communication. They have generously funded a Graduate College-based endowment to support the academic work of graduate students whose work reflects LGBTQ studies. The Barnhurst-Doherty Award offsets the cost presenting original research in a public setting.

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The Graduate College’s longest-running research support mechanism, the Award for Graduate Research (AGR) is open to all current graduate students, in programs under the auspices of the Graduate College, who seek funding in these three categories: travel, summer stipend, and materials/supplies. Using the same forms, the W.C. and May Preble Deiss Fund for Biomedical Research Award provides funds for research in clinical and basic medical sciences. There are two competitions annually: one in the fall semester and one in the spring semester.

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Graduate Mentoring Awards are designed to encourage and award excellence and innovation in all aspects of graduate mentoring. Each year the Graduate College will provide up to four awards of $2,000 each per year.

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The Honors College and the Graduate College at the University of Illinois Chicago are proud to announce the return of their award to highlight excellence of our graduate teaching and mentoring of undergraduates. Formerly called the Outstanding Undergraduate Mentoring Award, the newly named Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching & Mentoring Award (GSETMA) adheres to the guidelines of regional and national competitions.

• GSETMA

This autumnal competition rewards the most outstanding doctoral dissertation and master’s thesis in each of the Graduate College’s four divisions.  Each of the awards includes a monetary award ($500 for master’s thesis winners and $1,000 for doctoral dissertation winners). Winners may compete in regional and national competition held by the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) and the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS).

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Increasingly, graduate students are seeking positions outside the traditional tenure-track professoriate. To this end, the Graduate College has greatly enhanced its career and professional development offerings to help graduate students consider new career options and to build translatable skills. In an annual spring competition, the PGIA incentivizes graduate students to independently identify short (3-month) internship opportunities that might lead to employment following graduation. Students in programs with mandatory internships as part of their curriculum are ineligible. Full description and instructions.

Since its inception in 2009, this award has supported multidisciplinary scholarship to expose students to varied research and creative fields. The award mechanism has naturally evolved into a way for students early in their studies to develop new research directions for their PhD dissertations or terminal degree thesis/capstone project and has been used by graduate programs as a way for students to practice writing research proposals. Funding is available for pilot grants (or preliminary research) to help students to develop stronger applications for funding from external sources.

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The Image of Research is an annual interdisciplinary exhibit competition organized by the Graduate College and University Library to showcase the breadth and diversity of research at UIC. Each year, students enrolled in a graduate or professional degree program at UIC are invited to submit an image they created along with a brief précis of how the image relates to the student’s overall research. A multi-disciplinary jury reviews the submissions and awards prizes to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners and three honorable mentions for still-image submissions, and 1st and 2nd place winners for moving images submissions.

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Student Presenter Awards

The Graduate College offers funds to deserving students to defray expenses associated with travel to present original research or scholarly work. Qualifying presentations must be at a meeting or conference of a nationally or internationally recognized scientific or scholarly society. Awards may be used for transportation, hotel, meals, and/or registration expenses.

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UIC Graduate students you are invited to enter the Graduate College’s Virtual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia.

The competition supports student’s capacity to effectively explain their research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. They must condense their research into a brief, engaging presentation, using a single presentation slide.  Students enrolled in either a Master’s or Ph.D. program with an original research project may compete.

All graduate students working on an original research project are invited to apply.  Submit a 3-minute Vimeo video and fill out the short application.  Winners will have the chance to win up to $800 and the first-place winner will represent UIC at the 3MT competition held by the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools in Milwaukee Wisconsin April 7-8^. The top five presentations will be featured on the UIC Graduate College Website.

Deadline : Tuesday March 1, 2022, 11:30 PM.  The UIC 3MT Application Form is due with 1 static slide and a 3-minute Vimeo video.

*For Questions or Specific Accommodations please contact Theresa Christenson-Caballero, Director of Graduate Student Professional and Career Development at tchris1@uic.edu or contact Jodi Aguilar, Graduate College Graduate Assistant jaguil62@uic.edu  Make sure “3MT Question” is in the subject line of the email. Thank you.

• Three Minute Thesis Application
• Three Minute Thesis 3MT® Competition

The Graduate College at the University of Illinois Chicago created an award in order to fund graduate students who were suddenly unfunded for the summer of 2020 due to the global pandemic.

Inspired by the New Deal and its public works projects as well as by the university’s own mission, the Graduate College created the Public Service Graduate Internship Award (PSGIA). This paid summer experience allowed UIC graduate students to serve in the interest of the public good while obtaining valuable “hands-on” experience, albeit virtually. In addition to service for the public good, students received virtual experience in academic, administrative, and student service units at the University of Illinois Chicago.

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