Making Graduate Fellowships More Inclusive

Julia Kent, Vice President of Best Practices and Strategic Initiatives at the Council of Graduate Schools, contributed a letter to the discussion of “Fifty Years of Strategies for Equal Access to Graduate Fellowships” (Issues, Fall 2023).

Kent highlights from their article how changes to the  Graduate Research Fellowship Program “made a real difference in the participation of underrepresented students in the GRFP and made it possible for students from a broader range of educational institutions to have a shot at this prestigious fellowship.”

She then outlines the issues that need to be addressed when examining the traditional ways for admitting students into programs and awarding fellowships and why new practices need to be rigorously tested to ensure that our approaches are equity-minded.