*These competitions require nomination by the student's department. Departments set earlier internal application deadlines for students, so they can review and nominate to the fellowship review committee by April 2nd. Please check with your department for more information.

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Humanities Division Dissertation Completion Fellowships

The Division of the Humanities is able to award approximately 24 Dissertation Completion Fellowships to doctoral students who are sufficiently advanced in the writing of their dissertation that they are expected to complete the dissertation during the time they hold the award. These fellowships recognize the student’s academic achievements, and enable the student to devote full attention and effort towards completing the dissertation.

Fellowships will provide tuition, the required student services fee, University student health insurance, and a stipend. For students under the new funding model, fellowships will include a financial bonus. The terms of the fellowship prohibit students from engaging in any remunerative activity during the period of the fellowship. The sole exception to this prohibition to this rule is that fellows may undertake a modest teaching assignment in spring quarter if it is in fulfillment of their pedagogical training plan per the student teaching policy, and when it is clear from the fellow’s progress on the dissertation that teaching will not delay completion of the degree. Requests to undertake a teaching assignment must be made in writing to the Dean of Students, and are subject to departmental approval as all teaching must be in fulfillment of the pedagogical training plan.

Please Note: Students who hold a Dissertation Completion Fellowship in 2024-2025 must graduate by or before Summer 2025. Students who do not defend, complete the dissertation, and graduate during the fellowship year will be withdrawn from their program at the end of the Summer 2025 quarter.

Eligibility for all 2024-2025 Dissertation Completion Fellowships:
Some fellowships may only be held by students up to and including the sixth year in their program; others may only be held by students up to and including the seventh year; the few other fellowships may be held by students up to and including the eighth year of their program. If there are questions about your registration year, please contact humdos@uchicago.edu.

The following terms and conditions apply for all dissertation completion fellowships:
1. Without exception, students must be admitted to candidacy before they can apply for these fellowships. 
2. Students who have held or currently hold any dissertation completion fellowship (whatever the title of the fellowship: dissertation write-up, completion, etc.) from any internal or external sources are not eligible for consideration.
3. Students pursuing a joint degree program should submit the DCF application through their home department only.
4. Students must defend, complete the dissertation, and graduate in Summer 2025 or before. If this does not occur, the student will be withdrawn at the end of the Summer 2025 quarter.

Departmental Application Deadlines
A student’s home department must nominate them for this competition. Students must adhere to their departmental deadlines for application submission.

Application Materials

Each student must complete the online application, which includes submitting the following documents:
1. The timeline for completion of dissertation writing and defense, with the student and the dissertation committee attesting to the feasibility of granting of the degree by Summer 2025.
2. Statement of purpose (3-5 pages single-spaced), describing the dissertation project. The narrative statement should include a work plan. The statement should discuss the significance of this work within the student’s specific and general fields and the contribution this project will make to the field(s) with which it engages. Please remember that the fellowship review committee will include faculty members from across the Division and thus the candidate must explain terms and contexts that might not be familiar to those outside the field or subfield.
3. A curriculum vitae (C.V.).
4. A copy of one approved chapter of the nominee's dissertation for reference by the fellowship review committee.
5. Letters from two members of the student’s dissertation committee, attesting to the quality of the work and also to the ability of the student to complete and defend the dissertation in the Summer 2024 quarter or before. These letters should be uploaded by the faculty member.

Department chairs who are nominating students for DCFs, will provide a brief summary of the nominated students as well as a ranked order of the nominees. This should be emailed to humdos@uchicago.edu.

The deadline for departments to submit their nominations is Monday, April 2, 2024. Students can expect to be notified in early to mid-May of the final decision.

Please note that at this time, students who hold a Divisional Dissertation Completion Fellowship in year 6 and complete their program in that year and who apply to the Teaching Fellows in Humanities (TFH) application process will be selected to receive a TFH position the following year.