Once again, the College will fund Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowships for matriculated Union College students to do scholarly work with faculty members. The main goal of this program is to give strong students the opportunity to pursue a subject in-depth over the summer, under the guidance of faculty members. Each student applicant must have a faculty sponsor. The range of supported activities is broad – bibliographic work, field surveys, and laboratory research, among others. One goal of this program is to give the student an opportunity to work on faculty research, but we also encourage innovative student-generated projects as long they have faculty sponsors.
Summer Research Fellowship Requirements
List of Fellowships
Summer Housing and Dining
Selection Criteria
This is likely to be a highly competitive application process. In previous years we have funded projects from all areas of the College. College-wide distribution will be one of the criteria used to award fellowships. The Committee on Undergraduate Research will also take into account the following when selecting fellowship recipients:
- Quality of the student proposal
- Level of faculty support for the student and the project as expressed in the letter provided with the application
- Faculty mentor rank (junior faculty have priority)
- Student class (juniors, sophomores, then first-years, in order of decreasing priority, except for Scholars fellowships, where first-years and sophomores have priority).
- Student GPA
Application Materials
Directions for Students:
1. Find a faculty member who is willing to work with you on a summer research project.
2. Read the Summer Fellowship Requirements.
3. Prepare a resume listing name, address, email, major, GPA, education (including relevant coursework), and other activities relevant to this application. Contact the The Career Center in Becker Hall if you need help with this.
4. Prepare a Research Proposal of 2 pages or more in which you include the following information:
Framework: Description of important background material with citations (journal articles and texts; electronic resources should be cited properly), addressing how your proposed project relates to previous work of others.
Objectives and Goals: Clearly stated research question(s)
Significance: Description of how answering your research questions will advance the field.
Project Plan: Description of how you will carry out this research, including analysis/interpretation of your work.
Personal Goals: explaining what you hope to accomplish during the summer project toward your own academic or career development (optional).
Please see the “Proposal Tips” page for more information about preparing a good proposal.
5. Ask your faculty summer research advisor to complete a recommendation form for you.
6. When all this is ready, fill out the Summer Research Application (the application is not yet open, please check back in Winter 2025). The deadline for submitting will be Thursday, February 6, 2024, at 11:59pm.
Please note that if your application is recorded, you will see the message “Your form was successfully submitted and your application responses have been emailed to your proposed summer research faculty advisor. They will need to submit a letter of recommendation to complete your application. Summer Research Fellowship decisions will be announced early in the Spring Term. “ If you do not see this message, verify that the entries in your application were input correctly and resubmit your application.
Directions for Faculty:
You should receive an automated note each time one of your students has applied for a summer fellowship. The email message will inform you which student submitted an application. Use the link contained in this message to complete the recommendation for your student. A separate form must be completed for each student applying for summer research.