academic mamas--fellowship application proposals?

[readytobedone]

hi. i would've posted this on the PhDing thread, but i shamelessly wanted to make it as obvious as possible

i am applying for a dissertation completion fellowship, and they require a 5 (or fewer) page proposal of what my project is, what i intend to do in the year i would be funded by them, and what the relevance of it is.

has anyone done anything like this? if so, how did you structure it? it's just a completely new genre to me, and i want to do a good job (obviously). if you know of any examples anywhere on the web, i would love to take a look.

i am in the humanities, if that matters

[DariusMom]

I've done lots of proposals for fellowships, many of which, I'm happy to say, have been successful (in the humanities). I've never done a fellowship completion proposal, though.

Off the top of my head, I would focus on what your hypothesis is, what the relevance is, what you've done thus far, and then give a pretty detailed schedule of what you'll do with the year that will (hopefully!) be funded by the fellowship. I know that when I give a schedule as part of applications, it seems to make the committee feel that I've really thought through how to use my time most effectively. The last thing they want is to have someone dither around for a year with their money.

I'd be happy to look at your first draft if you think it might help. You can always PM me and I'll PM you my email address. Of course, as I said, I've never written this type of proposal, so I'm not sure how helpful my comments would be, but I'm willing to help. (BTW: I'm a post-doc in History)

[Carita]

I have written something similar for a fellowship, but it didn't have to be so long. I recently wrote my Research statement for a job application that had to be 3 pages minimum, and found that headers really helped. So you can have a header like Goals and Objectives where you discuss your hypothesis and the context and perhaps even your personal context, like if you have specialized training, overall goals and where this fellowship would fit, Background where you discuss the work done in that area up to that point and where you fit in, Timeline of work where you lay out exactly what work you will do and by what dates (including presentations at conferences or publishing papers), and the Conclusion or Summary where you wrap up what contribution to the field you will make and how the fellowship will make that happen, and what your research output is expected to be.

I am not in the humanties, so I defer to the advice of the PP. I just found that when I gave people my Research Statement to read, they found it hard to find the info they needed until I added the headers, and then they zeroed in on it.

[nnaemeka]

i'm in the same boat! thanks for the replies and anymore advice will be sooooo appreciated. thanks.

[readytobedone]

Originally Posted by nnaemeka

i'm in the same boat! thanks for the replies and anymore advice will be sooooo appreciated. thanks.

z, are you applying for the mellon?

[Realrellim]

Originally Posted by DariusMom

Off the top of my head, I would focus on what your hypothesis is, what the relevance is, what you've done thus far, and then give a pretty detailed schedule of what you'll do with the year that will (hopefully!) be funded by the fellowship.

If you did a dissertation proposal, some of it will read like your proposal (in terms of "here's what I'm doing and here's why it's important") and the rest should explain what you have done, what you're going to do, and when. Like the pp said, they want to make sure you have your act together and will actually phinish and not waste the year.

Good luck! The fellowship I received make it ever so much easier to actually phinish last year!

[readytobedone]

Originally Posted by Realrellim

If you did a dissertation proposal, some of it will read like your proposal (in terms of "here's what I'm doing and here's why it's important") and the rest should explain what you have done, what you're going to do, and when. Like the pp said, they want to make sure you have your act together and will actually phinish and not waste the year.

Good luck! The fellowship I received make it ever so much easier to actually phinish last year!

totally missed the fact that you're pregnant! congrats!

[nnaemeka]

Originally Posted by readytobedone

z, are you applying for the mellon?

no. i'm applying for the Woodson and several other discipline-focused or diversity fellowships. best of luck on getting your applications together!