Aboriginal Graduate Fellowships, University of British Columbia

Quick Facts

The University of British Columbia offers multi-year fellowships to Master’s and doctoral Aboriginal students. Award winners are selected on the basis of academic merit through an annual competition, administered by the Faculty of Graduate Studies in consultation with the First Nations House of Learning. Approximately a dozen new fellowships are offered each year.
Each fellowship provides a stipend of $18,000 per year plus tuition for doctoral students, and $16,000 plus tuition for Master’s students. Applicants for Master's funding will receive fellowship funding until the end of their second year of Master’s studies; applicants for doctoral funding will receive fellowship funding until the end of their fourth year of doctoral studies; in all cases, continued fellowship support is conditional on satisfactory academic progress. Recipients of Master’s fellowship funding must re-apply to be considered for doctoral funding.

Annual Value: 
$16,000 stipend plus tuition per year for Master's students; $18,000 stipend plus tuition per year for doctoral students
Award Status: 
Active
Deadline: 

Likely in January 2014

Eligibility

• All Aboriginal students are eligible to apply, but priority is given to Aboriginal graduate students whose traditional territory falls, at least in part, within Canada. This includes Canadian First Nations, Métis or Inuit students and may include Aboriginal students from Alaska and the northern states of the USA.
• Applicants may or may not be UBC graduate students at the time of application – the competition is open to both incoming and continuing graduate students. However, awardees must be enrolled as full-time graduate students at the UBC-Vancouver campus for the 2013-2014 academic year in order to receive an Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship through this competition. Students in the following programs are not eligible: MEng, MM, MBA, and PharmD.
• To be eligible to receive Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship funding, students are required to limit their number of hours of paid employment to an average of 12 hours per week during the funding period.

Citizenship: 
Canadian
Citizenship: 
Permanent Resident
Citizenship: 
International
Degree Level: 
Masters
Degree Level: 
Doctoral
Applicant Status: 
Incoming Students
Applicant Status: 
Continuing Students
Evaluation Criteria

Academic excellence (applicants for Master's funding - 50%; applicants for doctoral funding - 30%)

• Academic record
• Scholarships and awards held
• Duration of previous studies

Research ability or potential (applicants for Master's funding - 30%; applicants for doctoral funding - 50%)

• Quality of contributions to research and development
• Relevance of work experience and academic training to field of proposed research
• Significance, feasibility, and merit of proposed research, and justification for location of tenure
• Ability to think critically
• Ability to apply skills and knowledge
• Judgment
• Originality
• Initiative and autonomy
• Enthusiasm for research
• Determination and ability to complete projects within an appropriate period of time

Communication, interpersonal and leadership abilities (all applicants - 20%)

• The ability or potential to communicate scientific concepts clearly and logically in written and oral formats. For example, this could include:
  • quality of the application's presentation;
  • participation in preparing publications; and
  • awards for oral presentations or papers
• Professional and relevant extracurricular interactions and collaborations. For example, this could include:
  • mentoring;
  • teaching;
  • supervisory experience;
  • project management;
  • chairing committees;
  • organizing conferences and meetings; and
  • elected positions held.

Procedures
Application Procedures: 

Applicants must check with their graduate program regarding their program’s internal application deadline. Internal application deadlines are normally several weeks before the Faculty of Graduate Studies deadline, as graduate programs must review students' applications well in advance of the Faculty of Graduate Studies deadline of Friday, February 8, 2013.

Applicants must submit the following materials to their graduate program at UBC.  Applications may not be submitted directly to the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

• Completed Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship application.
• Academic records for all university-level studies (including studies undertaken but not completed) up to December 31, 2012. For institutions other than UBC, only official transcripts will be accepted. These may be original or certified true copies provided by the applicant's graduate program. For UBC, the applicant's "Academic History" printed from the SISC by the applicant's graduate program will be accepted. Please note that students must request certified true copies of transcripts from their graduate program, not from the Faculty of Graduate Studies.
• Two letters of recommendation. Only recommendation letters signed by the person providing the reference are acceptable; original, faxed, and scanned copies sent by e-mail directly to the student’s graduate program are acceptable.

 

Nomination Procedures: 

Graduate programs are to:

• verify eligibility of applicants
• review and rank applicants
• prepare a department cover letter (maximum two pages per nominee) listing the applicant's rank and the reasons for that ranking.
• Forward application(s) to the Faculty of Graduate Studies by 4:00 pm on Friday, February 8, 2013.

Adjudication Procedures: 

In consultation with the First Nations House of Learning, the Faculty of Graduate Studies will convene an adjudication committee made up of UBC faculty members and representatives from the First Nations House of Learning. The committee will review the applications and select the successful applicants.

The Faculty of Graduate Studies will notify graduate programs of the competition results for their applicants.