Fellowships - Dissertation Fellowship Program for 2008-09

Overview:

The Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, with the support of the Graduate School and Office of Academic Affairs, is pleased to announce a new program to support two (2) graduate students during academic year 2008-09 while they conduct research and write their dissertations. Each Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellow will receive a stipend of $3,000 for either the fall quarter of 2008 or the winter quarter of 2009 in addition to a tuition waiver. This support is designed to allow the graduate student to focus on research and writing for one term. The subject of the dissertation must be related to the current Wayne Morse Center theme of inquiry of “Democracy and Citizenship in the 21st Century.”

• Applications were accepted for the academic year 2008-09.
  (View Dissertation Fellowship Application Cover Sheet and Instructions)
• Applications were due by 3:00 p.m., on Monday, February 11, 2008.
• Selections were made in March, 2008.

The Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellowship Awards for 2008-09:

• Camille Walsh, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is now earning her Ph.D. in history. Her dissertation project, Class, Race and Claiming the Right to Equal Education, 1874-1974, traces the legal history of modern de facto school segregation as the product of both racial and economic inequality. It is a complicated story of how class and race are treated differently under the law, and how we can better understand the ongoing challenge of educational equity in the law.
  
  
• Veta Schlimgen is completing her Ph.D. in history in 2008-09. Her dissertation, From Insular Subjects to Colonial Aliens: Sovereignty, Citizenship and Filipino America from 1900 to 1950, is a history project that is, as she puts it, both “grand and intimate.” She analyzes a rarely-explored civil status between citizen and alien, the status of “American national” that is used for certain citizens. Veta will be the Alternate Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellow.
  
  
• Jen Erickson, Ph.D candidate in anthropology, dissertation is titled Citizenship, the State, and Resistance: Refugees and Social Service Organizations in the Midwest United States. She asks is how social citizenship in the United States is mediated and experienced among immigrant and refugee groups. The locus of the study is Bosnian and Sudanese refugees living in Fargo, North Dakota. She examines how public and private social service agencies categorize refugees and the varied ways in which ideas about citizenship are felt, contested, and perpetuated.
  

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Objectives:

The objectives of the Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellowship program are to support research and activities related to the Wayne Morse Center theme of inquiry, enhance UO graduate student participation in Wayne Morse Center activities, and deepen the intellectual and academic environment of the Wayne Morse Center.

Wayne Morse Center Theme and Activities for 2008-09:

The Wayne Morse Center theme for 2007-09 is
“Democracy and Citizenship in the 21st Century”
(see www.waynemorsecenter.uoregon.edu/democracy.html).

Mark Graber, Professor of Law and Government at the University of Maryland, will be the occupant of the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics. Graber is recognized as a leading scholar on constitutional law and politics. He will be in residence at the UO School of Law during September and early October of 2008. He will teach a law school class on Judicial Review and Democracy, host a “constitutional law schmooze” on Polarization and the Constitution on September 19-20, and deliver a public address on Political Polarization and the Courts.

The Wayne Morse Center welcomes its first Senior Faculty Fellow, Dan Tichenor. Tichenor will join the Political Science faculty at the UO in fall 2008, and he will initiate a program within the Wayne Morse Center on Civic Engagement and Public Policy. Tichenor's research interests include executive and legislative politics, social movements, interest groups, immigration, public policy, and history and politics.

The Wayne Morse Center will convene a symposium during winter, 2009, on “Politics, Participation and Dissent Following the 2008 Elections.” Participants will include invited speakers, UO faculty, and community advocates. Potential topic areas include:

• Security, Dissent and Civil Liberties
• Inequality and Democracy
• Voting and Participation
• Executive Power and the American Presidency  
• Immigration Policy and Politics
• New Forms of Political Engagement and Activism
• A People's Agenda for the New Administration and Congress

Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellowship applicants can propose scholarly activities that complement or supplement the Wayne Morse Center activities for 2008-09 described above. The theme of inquiry is broad and is intended to include topics and issues from many academic disciplines.

Eligibility and Stipend:  

The Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellowship program is open to all graduate students at the UO who are engaged in research and writing of the dissertation from any academic discipline. Students must be present at the UO during the term of the fellowship. Preference will be given to students who will not hold a GTF appointment, other fellowship, or training grant during the term of the Fellowship. Preference will also be given to students who have an accepted dissertation proposal.

Duties and Conditions:

• Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellows will undertake research for or writing of the dissertation.
• The dissertation must be related to the relevant Wayne Morse Center theme and interdisciplinary in nature and interest.
• Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellows will participate in the intellectual life of the Wayne Morse Center in appropriate and feasible ways. For example, Fellows might give a paper at a Wayne Morse Center Symposium or assist with hosting a visiting scholar.
• Wayne Morse Dissertation Fellows will acknowledge the Wayne Morse Center in all publications and events related to the research and activity supported by the Center.

Selection Process:

The Selection Committee will be interdisciplinary and drawn from the following positions and committees: the Wayne Morse Center Director, the Wayne Morse Center Advisory Board, and the Wayne Morse Center's Democracy and Citizenship Planning Committee.