For the second year, the Graduate School will offer a professional development opportunity open to all advanced doctoral students in any field.  Graduate Writing Fellows in the Disciplines will complete a short (4-hour) training in the fall semester that will prepare them to facilitate working groups within their departments or programs.  These groups will provide a peer context for refining professional writing, setting and meeting specific writing goals, and working through drafts of proposals, dissertations, and artcles.

See the announcement and application for more information.  Writing Fellows will receive a $1000 fellowship award at the end of each semester.  Applications are due to the Graduate School by September 5, 2016.

Last year’s fellows were from the colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Arts and Letters, Communication Arts and Sciences, Education, Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences.  Successful writing group outcomes from that group and the previous year’s pilot group (funded by a grant from the Council of Graduate School and ETS) included: 3 funded NSF grant proposals, 4 accepted journal articles,  5 dissertation proposals that were accepted without revision by advisors, and 12 students who completed their dissertations within 6 months after participating in the departmental writing groups.

For more information contact Dr. Judith Stoddart, Interim Dean of the Graduate School (stoddart@grd.msu.edu).