Graduate Student Fellowship Program

Call for Applications

2023-2024 Boniuk Institute Graduate Student Fellowship

Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance (BI) is seeking
candidates for two Boniuk Institute graduate research fellowships during the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024
semesters.

Fellows will participate in a range of both scholarly research and outreach endeavors and should plan to
spend about 15 hours a week on Boniuk Institute activities, including:
  • Participation in the Boniuk Institute Graduate Salon, which meets Thursdays in person from 12-1:30PM. Fellows will review current topics of religion, religious pluralism and tolerance with an eye for publishing the reviews.
  • Attending the Religion and Public Life Program (a BI program) Fellows Meetings, in which fellows will present their ongoing research to a scholarly group of peers at least once during the year of the fellowship.
  • Contributing to the Institute’s monthly newsletter by creating new and timely content on current research in the field of religion, religious tolerance and pluralism.
  • Assisting with the planning, preparation and running of a scholarly conference, to be held in the Spring of 2024.
  • Receive training in and participate in the planning phase of the Boniuk Institute’s new annual survey.
  • Receive training in and contribute to qualitative/interpretive interview data analysis and academic publications.
  • Possible assistance with other public scholarship activities and events as needed.
  • The potential to write an op-ed with a mentor for publication in The Conversation.
Continuation of the fellowship during the Spring 2024 semester will be contingent on the successful completion of the Fall 2023 semester.

Interested scholars should submit a CV, two paragraphs explaining their interest in the position and how their ongoing work relates to any aspect of religious tolerance, including religious discrimination or victimization, a scholarly writing sample of no more than five pages, and the names and email addresses of two Rice University faculty references to Program Administrator Kate Eubanks (ke12@rice.edu) by Friday, March 31, 2023. Decisions will be released in April. Fellows must be enrolled full time in a PhD program at Rice University.

Graduate fellows will receive a stipend of 32K over a twelve- month period, (likely from July 1, 2023 until June 30th 2024) and 1K for conference travel to present a paper on a topic relevant to the Boniuk Institute’s work. This fellowship will replace other fellowship opportunities for a given year. Students may be able to bank existing university fellowship monies, however, in effect providing an extra year of total funding for a PhD program. Students should be beyond their first year in a given PhD program.