Royce Graduate Fellowship

The Swearer Center at Brown University invites application for Royce Graduate Fellowship positions. These academic fellowships, funded by the Royce Fund for Engaged Scholarship, are open to Master’s students in any year interested in exploring intersections of community engagement, higher education, assessment, community agency, and public health.

These fellowships are available for the summer and/or the academic year.

Our fellowships aim to involve graduate Master’s students in research on community engagement in the higher education field. Graduate fellows will contribute to the growing faculty engagement work that the Swearer Center leads at Brown University and with other higher education institutions.

The Swearer Center intentionally cultivates synergies advancing community engagement and social innovation at Brown University, nationally, and internationally. The Center works toward participatory field-building, emphasizes equity- and asset-focused approaches to collaboration, and identifies exemplary community engagement to make visible as models.

Responsibilities & Expected Hours

Fellows will be paid at a rate of $15/hour with a commitment of up to 10 hours/week. They will be part of a diverse, multidisciplinary graduate fellows cohort at the Swearer Center.

General Expectations:

  • Participate in monthly Swearer graduate fellows learning community.
  • Actively contribute to the Swearer Center community, especially the Engaged Scholarship team.
  • Research best practices in the field of community engagement, engaged scholarship, and social innovation.
  • Produce research briefs, literature reviews, and annotated bibliographies.

Specific high priority tasks and responsibilities include:

  • Communications:
    • Research and write short spotlights about engaged faculty at Brown.
    • Contribute to the development of content for the faculty and graduate student sections of the Swearer Center’s website.
    • Work with Swearer and library staff to create a LibGuide on engaged scholarship. 
  • Program Coordination:
    • Support key tasks related to two national engaged faculty awards - outreach, nomination system, and selection process.
    • Participate in event planning, outreach, and evaluation.
    • Work with Swearer staff and faculty fellow on running the Undergraduate Royce Fellowship.
  • Research:
    • Compile resources for connecting community engagement with academic discipline.
    • Research best practices in engaged faculty research and teaching.
    • Research models for graduate certificates in engaged scholarship and classes offered at Brown that could count towards requirements.
  • Assessment & Data Mapping:
    • Contribute to compiling rubrics and instruments for the Center’s learning outcomes assessment and creating Center-specific survey tools and instruments.
    • Analyze and visualize data collected through the Center’s assessment instruments (knowledge of Tableau, Python preferred).
    • Contribute to the development of the Center’s faculty engagement and community partnership mapping and database.

Eligibility

Master’s or doctoral students in any year are invited to apply. Priority will be given to applicants with research or other work experience related to higher education civic and community engagement.

Application Process and Submission Deadline

  • A 1-page Statement of Purpose detailing:
    • Current status as a graduate student (year, expected graduation date, competing employment or anticipated academic demands);
    • Your interest in the fellowship, which of the tasks seem most interesting to you, your experience working in research projects, methods training, interest and involvement in community and civic engagement; and
    • Preferred starting date (summer or fall)
  • A writing sample (5-page stand-alone sample or excerpt from a longer paper)
  • A current CV
  • A short letter of support (from a faculty member, previous employer, or your departmental Director of Graduate Studies at Brown) to be sent to Georgina Manok, Assistant Director for Research & Assessment ([email protected])

Send the requested items (statement of purpose, writing sample, CV) as one .pdf document via email to Georgina Manok, Assistant Director for Research & Assessment ([email protected]) with the subject line: [Royce Graduate Fellowship_Last Name].

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis for a start date in the summer of 2022.