The University of Colorado at Boulder is one of just 15 institutions nationwide chosen to take part in a new program of postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities.
The two-year fellowships, each worth a minimum of $30,000 per year, were recently announced by the Princeton-based Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
CU-Boulder shares the honor of hosting the fellowships with such institutions as Harvard, Yale, the University of California, Berkeley, Northwestern University and New York University.
The Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities are intended to provide broader teaching experiences, to jumpstart academic careers and encourage good practices in graduate education.
The foundation says that by providing additional positions for new Ph.D.s in the humanities, these fellowships will enable promising young teachers and scholars to remain in academia at a time when the job market is difficult for humanities Ph.D.s.
The fellowship program, due to begin next year, will be administered by CU聮s Center for Humanities and the Arts and is intended as a collaborative project between the Boulder and Denver campuses.
CHA Director Jeff Cox says the center already supports faculty research in arts and humanities and administers more than $250,000 each year in graduate fellowships.
Cox says that the Woodrow Wilson fellows will teach one course per semester -- half the university聮s normal teaching requirement -- at Boulder each fall and at the Denver campus each spring.
"With this light teaching load, fellows should have adequate time to pursue their research and to make the kind of progress that is necessary to secure future employment," says Cox.
In addition to the annual salary of $30,000, the postdoctoral fellows will receive $1,000 in travel/research funds and be provided with an office, telephone, computer and printer, access to a fax and part-time administrative assistance.
Initially, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation will fund $10,000, with the balance coming from several university sources 聳 the office of President John Buechner, the Graduate School, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Humanities and the Arts (in Boulder) and the Graduate School and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (in Denver).
The national foundation undertakes to search for suitable candidates. The first set of candidates must have received or expect to receive their Ph.D.s in the humanities between January and August 2000 after no more than seven years in a doctoral program.
Applicants must also have had significant teaching experience, and this year聮s candidates must apply by Nov. 19. A selection panel of distinguished humanists will consider each application and draw up a short-list.
Foundation staff will then forward recommendations to the host institutions, which make the final selections. Their offers are due by Feb. 1, 2000, after which candidates have one month to accept positions.