McColl Fellowship

The Center for the Study of the American South offers the McColl Dissertation Year Fellowship in Southern Studies to support the completion of a dissertation by a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a subject related to the history, culture, or society of the American South. We define the South broadly, to include the states of the former Confederacy and adjoining areas. The fellowship will include in-state tuition, fees, health insurance, and a stipend of $16,000, and is made possible with the generous support of Hugh L. McColl, Jr.

The Southern Oral History Program is participating in a three-year collaboration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that focuses on the “Long Civil Rights Movement” of the 1930s to the 1990s. In support of this goal, the selection committees for 2009-10 and 2010-11 will be especially interested in applications dealing with the theme of civil rights in the American South. The SOHP’s partners in the Long Civil Rights initiative are the University Library, the Center for Civil Rights at the Law School, and the University of North Carolina Press. The project is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

The fellowship will begin July 1, 2010 and continues for twelve months. Recipients are expected to devote their full efforts to the completion of the dissertation, and are not permitted any other form of employment while holding the fellowship. Fellows will also participate regularly in our “Tell about the South” research discussion series, and to make a presentation to that forum.

Recipients may not defer the McColl Fellowship or receive its stipend simultaneously with any other major source of competitive funding. Recipients who receive other funding awards may decline the McColl stipend and retain the title of McColl Fellow.

The next application deadline is Friday, February 12, 2010. Notification will take place by no earlier than April 1, 2010.


Applicants should submit three hard copies and one electronic copy of the following:

  1. cover sheet
  2. curriculum vitae
  3. the dissertation proposal
  4. a letter from the advisor that:
  • certifies that the applicant is a doctoral student in good standing who will have reached formal candidacy for the Ph.D. by July 1, 2010.
  • evaluates the intellectual quality of the project and the likelihood that the McColl Fellowship will enable the applicant to complete the dissertation before June 30, 2011.