Welcome

The Michigan Society of Fellows, under the auspices of the Rackham Graduate School, was founded in 1970 with endowment grants from the Ford Foundation and the Horace H. and Mary Rackham Funds. The seven founding UM faculty members hailed from Economics, German, English, the Law School, the School of Natural Resources and Environment (now SEAS), and the Medical School, including the then president of the university, Robben Fleming.

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The Society

The Society draws together fellows from across all scholarly and artistic fields to stimulate cross-disciplinary awareness and exchange. Out of these conversations come new ideas, new methodological experiments, and even new collaborative projects. We welcome six postdoctoral fellows each year for a term of three years, and a group of senior fellows, drawn from distinguished faculty across the University of Michigan, for a term of four years. The Society seeks to have among its fellows a rough balance among the Biological & Physical Sciences, Engineering & Public Health, Social Sciences & Education, and Humanities & Arts. Fellows are invited to the Society not only because their scholarship or artistic expression is compelling, timely, pathbreaking and imaginative but also because their work will thrive best in a space where multiple fields of inquiry converge.

The Fellows

Postdoctoral fellows concurrently serve as non-tenure-track Assistant Professors in a sponsoring department or school, where they teach the equivalent of one year (across their three-year appointment). They share work-in-progress in their first year during a monthly postdoctoral fellows’ lunch and offer a more formal presentation in their second year to the entire Society. As postdoctoral fellows move back and forth between their disciplinary home and our interdisciplinary community, they learn—at a formative point in their careers—how to sense the import of their research for a broad group of thinkers, a process that in turn makes their work more consequential. They also have the precious time to re-envision their scholarly and creative projects with this broadened perspective.

The Need

Rackham is committed to fueling life-changing educational opportunities for promising scholars and helping cultivate an environment for innovation and transformation. As one of the most distinguished societies of its kind, the Michigan Society of Fellows works to produce high-quality, impactful work that significantly contributes to their fields and pioneer inspiring solutions. By supporting the Michigan Society of Fellows you will allow us to meet a variety of needs, seize emerging opportunities, and tackle challenges.  A gift to the program will enrich the U-M community throughout their careers and extend U-M’s impact in the world.

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