Program Overview

The timeline for the 2009 Fellowship Program is available by clicking here. Proposals, as well as questions about the program, should be directed to Calvin ’s Dean for Research and Scholarship, Matt Walhout, in the Spoelhof Center, Room 327. For further information, contact Dean Walhout at 526.6869 or by email at: scholars@calvin.edu

In the Spring of 1998, Calvin College received a grant from the Detroit-based McGregor Fund to establish a program for supporting student (and faculty) research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The original grant of $100,000 supported a 3 year program of up to 10 student Fellowships per year. Since the summer of 2002, the Calvin College McGregor Summer Research Fellowship Program has been funded in part by an additional grant from the McGregor Fund but the majority of the Program's costs are supported by the generosity of private donors.

Since their inception, the McGregor Summer Research Fellowships have been focused on connecting undergraduate students with faculty partners in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Now in their 6th year, the Fellowships continue to solicit and support Calvin's "best and brightest" students and faculty in collaborative research projects.

Under guidelines approved by the Academic Development Committee, the McGregor Fellowship Committee is responsible for administering this program.The Committee is composed of at least 3-4 faculty members (representing some of the disciplines eligible to participate) in addition to the Dean for Research and Scholarship and the Fellowship Program's Coordinator.

This Committee solicits and evaluates both faculty project proposals and also student applications prior to awarding Fellowships to students and pairing them with faculty mentors. In approving faculty proposals, the McGregor Fellowship Committee looks for meaningful student involvement as co-researchers as well as a clear outcome, such as a co-authored paper, in which students would participate. For the first three years of the program, the selection process was as follows:

• the Committee accepted faculty proposals
• the Committee narrowed the pool of faculty applicants to 10 projects
• 10 projects were presented to the students
• Students applied for up to 3 projects, ordered in terms of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice(s)
• In the final step, the Committee paired students with the 10 faculty projects.

The current process is slightly different in that the faculty projects presented to the student applicants is not narrowed to 10 prior to receiving student applications. The simple reasoning is that the Committee is focused on making the best possible matches of students and projects. This process also allows the Committee the freedom to seek a balance in projects across disciplines.