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LAWRENCE -- The Graduate School of the University of Kansas has received financial commitments from the Office of the Chancellor and KU graduate alumni to create new fellowships and scholarships for recruiting and retaining top doctoral students. The Graduate School plans to offer financial support to 21 additional doctoral students by fall 2005.
The chancellor's office has committed $60,000 a year for two new Chancellor's Fellows for each of three years starting in fall 2003. A total of six students will be funded over the next six years. These fellowships will be used as a recruiting tool. Departments offering a doctoral program are eligible to nominate incoming doctoral students for this fellowship. Each $30,000 Chancellor's Fellowship will include a stipend, tuition payment and an assistantship offered by the student's department but paid for by the Graduate School.
"It is essential that KU be competitive in recruiting and retaining top doctoral students," said KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway in explaining his commitment to the Graduate School. "Graduate students are vital to the academic life of a major research and teaching institution."
The Graduate School will receive funds from the KU Endowment Association's telephone campaign that targeted alumni who earned KU graduate degrees. KU Endowment secured pledges of $38,000 for use by the Graduate School for supplemental scholarships. Starting in fall 2003, five new doctoral students will receive $4,000 supplemental fellowships for three years. Five students received similar scholarships this academic year from funds solicited in 2001.
More than 20 departments applied for the new Graduate School Supplemental Scholarships to assist recruiting efforts for fall 2003. The American studies, chemistry, molecular biosciences and psychology departments and the Intercampus Graduate Program in Communicative Disorders will receive $4,000 each year for three years to recruit and support one incoming doctoral student who also must be supported by a research or teaching assistantship. In applying for the supplemental scholarships, departments had to address several areas, including their recruitment of doctoral students and how long it takes them to complete their degrees, visibility of the graduate faculty and long-range plans of the graduate program.
"We are very pleased that graduate alumni see the need for these supplemental scholarships and chose to support graduate education at KU through their pledges," said Diana Carlin, dean of the Graduate School and International Programs. "This is the third year for this targeted phone campaign, and we have received growing levels of support from alumni each year."
This year's pledges will help support 10 students for the 2003-04 school year. If the phone campaign continues to bring in support, said Carlin, the Graduate School in fall 2004 will reach its target of supporting 15 students each year.
Funds raised through the phone campaign by KU Endowment on behalf of KU will count toward the goal of raising $500 million as part of KU First: Invest in Excellence, KU's major fund-raising campaign. For more information, contact John Augusto, assistant dean of the Graduate School, at (785) 864-4141.
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