Daniels Fellowship

 

Doing what you love means knowing yourself well enough to be able to answer the question, ‘What would you love to do?’ and loving yourself enough to ask it.”  

—Pamela Daniels, in Working It Out, 1977

Pamela Daniels ’59 was a Class Dean at Wellesley from 1981 to 2000. When she retired in May 2000, her former students, classmates, family and friends endowed the Pamela Daniels ’59 Fellowship, to be offered annually in the fall to support an original senior project.

The Office of the Provost and Dean of the College invites applications for the 2023-2024 Pamela Daniels Fellowship. The Pamela Daniels Fellowship is a merit award intended to encourage the maverick spirit at Wellesley. It is meant to provide an opportunity for a senior to envision and carry out a piece of work that she would love to do before she graduates—a work of imagination as well as intellect, a worthy and vivid dream project that explores who she is as well as what she knows.

The fellowship project may be creative or analytic. It must be related to a credit-bearing Wellesley course, which may or may not be an honors project and which may or may not be in the student’s major field. It may be an exploration of a familiar topic from a new perspective, or it may venture into an entirely new realm. Whether the project entails research in a remote archive, travel into a new landscape, production of a work of art or recording the life history of a social activist, the creators of the fellowship hope that the experience will affirm the student’s identity as an intellectual or artistic risk-taker.

Up to six fellowships, in the amount of $3,500 each, will be awarded for the academic year 2023-2024. Seniors in good standing are eligible to apply.

Seniors applying for the Daniels Fellowship should submit the following materials:

  1. cover sheet listing name, major(s), local address and telephone number, email address, title, and brief description of the project, the Wellesley course in which the work of the project will be done, and the name of the project advisor. The cover sheet should be signed and dated by both the student and advisor.
  2. a 2-3 page proposal that a.) describes the fellowship project and work plan and b.) discusses the personal as well as intellectual significance of the project in the context of the applicant’s education as a whole. The proposal must directly address the ideals of the fellowship.
  3. budget explaining how the fellowship award will be used, e.g., to cover travel and living expenses related to fieldwork, interviews, research or production; to reduce paid work obligations during the academic year or winter session, thereby freeing time for the project; to purchase material, supplies and/or equipment necessary to carry out the project;
  4. a current resume;
  5. an official transcript or grade report from the registrar;
  6. two letters of recommendation from Wellesley faculty, one of which must be written by the student’s project advisor. The letters should address a.) the originality, strength, and feasibility of the student’s proposed project; b.) the student’s ability to work independently; and c.) the way(s) in which the student and the proposed project express and fulfill the ideals of the fellowship. These letters should be sent directly to Andrew Shennan, Provost and Dean of the College at provost@Wellesley.edu.

Completed fellowship applications should be sent to the Pamela Daniels Fellowship Selection Committee, c/o Andrew Shennan, Office of the Provost and Dean of the College, 345 Green Hall, or by email at provost@wellesley.edu by noon Monday, October 2, 2023. Finalists will be interviewed by the Selection Committee on Monday, October 16. 

(Please note: A recipient of the Daniels Fellowship is not eligible to also receive a Schiff or a Levitt Fellowship.)

Each Pamela Daniels Fellowship recipient will be required 1.) to give a public presentation of her work to the community at the spring 2024 Ruhlman Conference, and 2.) to submit a short written report reflecting on their fellowship experience to the Office of the Provost and Dean of the College before the last day of exams, 2024.