A new CU-Boulder research program, with resources rivaled in few places outside the nation's capital, allows doctoral candidates focusing on Third World development to apply for fellowships that support fieldwork and create a competitive advantage in the pursuit of prestigious national funding.
DART, or Developing Areas Research and Teaching, is an interdisciplinary program established at CU-Boulder last year to foster research and teaching activities within the broad field of development studies.
"What inspired DART was the realization of the strength of expertise in development studies that had emerged on campus and in the Boulder community in the past decade," said program co-director Professor Gary Gaile, chair of the CU-Boulder geography department.
"We realized we had a nexus of people who worked well together and who provided a core that was perhaps matched in very few places outside of Washington," Gaile said.
The program's unique nature allows it to offer a fellowship to any doctoral candidate - regardless of the student's college or department - if the student's work focuses on Third World development studies.
Participants believe the DART pre-dissertation fellowship, which supports a field-based research project, will ultimately help talented CU Ph.D. candidates compete for prestigious fellowships such as the National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays and other nationally and internationally competitive awards.
All four students who were awarded DART grants in the program's first year also secured major external funding for their doctoral research.
"Bringing together faculty, students and community members across disciplines has inspired DART," Gail said. "Enabling our best young graduate students is a great investment."
In addition to fostering preliminary field research, the fellowships also are intended to help students develop formal contacts and working relationships that will aid them as they complete their larger research projects.
To be eligible, students must be enrolled in doctoral programs on the CU-Boulder campus, and be or become student members of DART. Fellowship recipients also commit to writing a 2,000-word report on their research, presenting an informal talk on their work, and submitting at least one proposal for additional outside funding to support their dissertations.
The DART fellowship must be completely spent by Jan. 1, 2003.
DART also supports workshops, invites distinguished speakers to campus, organizes brown-bag discussion series and provides forums for interaction between campus and community development professionals. DART has proposed a graduate certificate program in development studies and will embark on thematic research agendas in the next year.
For more information about DART, visit the program Web site at .