Rackham Graduate School has long recognized that a student body comprised of diverse perspectives and experiences is a critical component of scholarly creativity and excellence. Toward that end, the Rackham Merit Fellowship program was initially created to increase the enrollment of minoritized graduate students through a prestigious named fellowship. Over time the program has evolved and expanded to support recruitment and success of doctoral students with experiences and perspectives underrepresented in higher education; changes were further introduced in response to the passage of Michigan Proposition 2 in 2006 and as policies such as continuous enrollment and full funding of doctoral students were put into place by Rackham. Each year, as many as 170 incoming doctoral students are awarded an RMF, making it the largest fellowship program within Rackham and one of the few administered in financial partnership with graduate programs. The goals of the RMF are to (1) recruit students from RMF-eligible populations into Rackham graduate programs; (2) offer incentives to Rackham graduate programs to identify, recruit, and matriculate students from RMF-eligible populations; and, (3) provide additional incentives for creating a climate in which students from RMF-eligible populations can thrive and complete their degrees.
Through stakeholder engagement during 2022-2023, it was discovered that RMF is rarely utilized as a recruitment tool by graduate programs and that the fellowship does not provide an effective incentive for graduate programs and their faculty to engage in RMF goals. During DEI 2.0, Rackham will realign RMF policies and practices with program objectives and build stronger partnerships with graduate programs by:
- Engaging doctoral programs directly with the RMF climate and culture goals
- Requiring doctoral programs to apply on a five-year cycle to participate in the program
- Enhancing financial support and programming for Rackham Merit Fellows
- Creating new fellowship opportunities for advanced graduate students
- Implementing the Rackham Achievement Award, starting in FY2023-24, for mentee-mentor pairs that have demonstrated sustained commitment to diversity in the U-M community
- Realigning criteria and selection process to achieve RMF's goals
Responsible Unit: Rackham Graduate School