Kolbe Fellows Program

2019 Kolbe Summer Fellows

Back row - Timothy Black ’20, Prof. Amy Evrard, Haley Shultz ’21, Prof. Anne Douds, Utkarsh Uprety ’20; Prof. Ivanova Reyes, Shanzea Sarewar ’20
Front row - Zoe Phillipou '20, Lillian Shea ’21, Brendon Hokanson ’20, Caroline Cuetara ’21, Benjamin Roy ’21. Kolbe Fellow not pictured - Ellianie Vega ’20

Kolbe Summer Fellows 2022

The Kolbe Summer Fellows Program in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences is a ten-week faculty-mentored student research program conducted during the summer before a student's sophomore, junior, or senior year. Preference in selection is given to projects which are interdisciplinary in nature and to applicants who are first-years or sophomores at the time of application.

This year's Kolbe Summer Fellows 2022 information session will be held Friday, October 29 at 4pm in BREI 107 and Tuesday, November 2 at Noon in CUB 230. Please register at least 48 hours before the event using the Event Registration Form.

The Program:

  • Faculty-mentored student research during the summer before a student’s sophomore, junior, or senior year.
  • The research project should be connected to the student’s on-going program of study. Fellows can complete a project begun in an earlier course, the beginning of a senior capstone project, or it can be related to the applicant’s personal interest provided that the topic be grounded in the liberal arts.
  • Up to eight students selected as Fellows will receive a stipend of $4500 each and an additional $500 is available to defray the costs of project-related expenses. Campus housing for the duration of the program is free for Fellows.
  • Faculty mentors receive a stipend of $1000 and may only mentor one Fellow each summer.
  • Fellows and their mentors are expected to attend and participate in the required two required luncheon meetings scheduled during the 10-week summer program unless project-related activities require the Fellow to be elsewhere with their mentor.
  • Each Kolbe Fellow must give a formal update of their work—a progress report—the last week of the summer program. The oral report must be no longer than 10 minutes in length, with an additional 5 minutes allowed for questions, and will be delivered to the students and the faculty mentors participating in the program only. Public presentations of the finished project in poster format are required at the annual campus luncheon held each January for this purpose and at Celebration, the College’s campus-wide colloquium.
  • All supported projects must be compliant with the College’s ethical review policies. If the research design employs the use of human subjects, the online protocol must be submitted to the IRB for review, along with certificate of CitiProgram training completion, no later than Friday, April 15, 2022.
  • This program is awarded according to the College’s Non-Discriminatory policy which can be found on the Admissions/Financial Aid website.

Who May Apply:

  • Current first-years, sophomores or juniors, in partnership with their faculty mentors.

Deadline for Application:

  • The deadline for summer 2022 is Monday, February 14, 2022 at 5 pm.

How to Apply:

  1. All applicants must first fill out and submit the Kolbe Fellows Program Application which provides the selection committee with some initial information about the applicant and serves as a cover sheet for the application. Once the form has been submitted, applicants will be taken to a page explaining the next steps.
  2. All applicants are required to submit the following materials in the order specified as a single pdf. Compress the individual files into one large file with KF’22 and the applicant’s name in the subject line of the e-mail and as the file’s title:
    • A one-page resume
    • A three-page proposal (11 pt. font, double spaced) outlining the nature of the applicant’s project. The proposal should include the intended goals to be accomplished, how specifically these goals will be met, how this particular project will contribute to the applicant’s academic or artistic field, the research design and timetable they intend to employ, and a budget stating how the $500 in research-related expenses will be spent.
    • A one to two-page annotated bibliography so the committee can see what sources each applicant has read/consulted in developing their proposal and will continue to review during the summer.
    • A one-page personal academic statement in which the applicant outlines how the project is connected to his/her academic program and how this experience will help achieve their future educational and career goals. In particular, the committee is interested in learning what the applicant has done to prepare themselves to undertake the project e.g., study of a language, related coursework, internship experience, etc.
  3. In addition to the above materials, an official transcript must be sent hard-copy through campus mail to Maureen Forrestal, Box 2960. Please arrange for this through the Registrar’s Office no later than February 14 for Summer 2022.
  4. All applicants must secure an endorsement letter (mentor should submit this electronically to osse@gettysburg.edu with the name of the candidate with whom they will be working in the subject line.) The letter should address not only the student’s preparedness to undertake the project but it’s applicability to their academic program. Mentors should also include the appropriateness of their academic backgrounds/expertise for supervising the student’s project and must provide a detailed plan for supervising the student in their work. In addition, the mentor must indicate a willingness to meet with the student regularly during the summer, preferably in person but certainly by e-mail or phone, if the mentor will be conducting research off-campus at any time during the program dates. All of this must be indicated in the endorsement letter. Ideally, the Kolbe Fellow would be able to join their mentor for part of the time. If the mentor’s work does not require long-distance travel, the mentor is expected to attend the initial luncheon meeting as well as the oral progress reports that last week of the program and this understanding must also be indicated in the letter.

    Preference in selection will be given to those applications in which student and mentor will be able to spend most of the program together, engaged in the project.

    All materials must be emailed to osse@gettysburg.edu no later than February 14 at 5 pm for Summer 2022. This deadline includes endorsement letters and transcripts. Late submissions will not be considered.

Criteria for Selection

  1. The clarity of the proposal itself with regard to goals, objectives, and project design;
  2. The feasibility of the project given the applicant’s academic background, the project scope, and the time frame proposed;
  3. The faculty mentor’s endorsement of the project, the appropriateness of their background/expertise for supervision of the project, and the extent to which the project provides an opportunity for regular interaction between faculty mentor and the student;
  4. The quality of the ideas expressed i.e., the merit of the research itself;
  5. The likelihood of the project’s resulting in a paper, creative performance, or work of art, or other suitable outcome for presentation; and
  6. The strength of connection between the project and the applicant’s academic goals.

Eligibility

In order to be considered for a Kolbe Summer Research Fellowship, applicants must have earned at least a 3.0 GPA at the time of application. The project proposal must be directly linked to the applicant’s academic program and this connection must be articulated within the proposal. For example, the applicant can begin or complete a research project linked to a course, a course cluster, or a specific interest related to his/her major or minor. Juniors might use their summer project to form the basis for a senior thesis or capstone. Project topics must be in the humanities, arts, social sciences, or interdisciplinary in nature.

Please be aware that if selected to be a Kolbe Fellow, the awardee is expected to conduct the majority of the activities associated with the project on campus during the program period, May 25- July 31, 2022. The intent of the Kolbe program is to create a community of scholars at Gettysburg so you need to be present in order to both contribute and benefit, as well as to attend the luncheon meetings. There are obvious exceptions to this residency requirement. If the candidate's discipline is such that field work is an integral component e.g., an archaeological dig for an Anthropology major, being away from campus during the program is acceptable. If the candidate is traveling with their mentor to do on-site data collection, that would be another example of an acceptable exception. If there is doubt, the best thing to do is to contact Maureen Forrestal (mforrest@gettysburg.edu), Assistant Provost for Student Scholarly Engagement, to see if the project plans merit special consideration.

Remuneration

A summer stipend of $4,500 will be competitively awarded to up to eight students. This stipend, which will be paid in five bi-weekly installments during the course of the 10-week program, is intended to take the place of what would normally be earned through summer employment. Therefore, Fellows are not allowed to engage in any other employment, as the work they are required to do should be their primary focus.  To this end, Fellows will also not be allowed to engage in summer coursework, unless granted prior approval. Faculty mentors will receive a $1,000 stipend for the summer. On-campus housing is provided for Scholars at no cost to them. In addition to the stipend, up to $500 will be available for expense reimbursement connected to the project. With regard to taxation of the stipend, please refer to the Scholarships and Fellowships Taxation Guide.

Please note, if the project includes overseas air travel, the Fellow must have enough personal funds or a personal credit card when making flight reservations to reserve the ticket. The College cannot arrange for travel advances for students, not even against the stipend.

If you have any questions about this program, please email mforrest@gettysburg.edu.