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The Faculty of Arts and Science is launching a new Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Black Studies and Post-Doctoral Fellowships for Indigenous Students Program as part of its commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigenization. This is the first guiding principle of its Strategic Plan and includes promoting justice and embracing a variety of scholarly perspectives, backgrounds, and lived experiences.

The program will offer emerging scholars from a wide range of disciplines access to the financial support, mentorship, and career development opportunities needed to build the foundation for a successful career.

This new program builds on and extends the Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Program, offering additional support to emerging scholars. After successfully developing and implementing a pilot project in 2018 to offer the Pre-Doctoral Fellowships for Indigenous Students, FAS expanded the program in 2021. It now includes three new Pre-Doctoral Fellowships in Black Studies as well as three Pre-Doctoral Fellowships for Indigenous Students. The call for applications for the 2023 Pre-Doctoral Fellowships Program is now open and the Faculty is having a Meet and Greet which is an exciting opportunity for our prospective, previous, and current pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellows and our community to connect with each other in an informal setting.

“This inaugural Post-Doctoral Fellowship program has been created to provide enhanced supports for early career scholars in Black Studies and Indigenous Studies, building upon the foundation of the Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Program,” explains EDII Director Elliot Chapple.

This year, the new Post-Doctoral Program is reserved for current FAS Pre-Doctoral Fellows and the fellowships will be awarded to those who have completed their pre-doctoral fellowships and earned their degrees from their home university and are interested in continuing their academic journey at Queen’s. The funding for the Post-Doctoral Fellows is offered as support at a crucial juncture in their academic careers.

The new post-doc will be announced at the upcoming Meet and Greet event.

“While gaining a foothold to begin a career can be difficult, too often scholars in these fields the additional challenges of racism and systems structured implicitly or explicitly to protect others’ privilege,” says Dr. Chapple. “The Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Black Studies and Post-Doctoral Fellowships for Indigenous Students begin to address this problem by providing an additional year of resources, supervision, mentorship, and funding.”

The Post-Doctoral Fellowships will support up to four successful applicants working on research in the creative arts, humanities, social sciences, or natural and physical sciences. With funding provided for the one-year term, scholars will be able to dedicate their time to pursuing research projects beyond their dissertation, focusing on research output, continuing to receive guidance from a supervisor and other mentors, while also working alongside faculty, students, and alumni.

“We have a responsibility as a public institution to provide equitable access to opportunities for emerging scholars to acquire the knowledge and skills that will help them to create successful futures for themselves,” says Vice-Dean Lynda Jessup, who was also instrumental in the creation of the Pre-Doctoral Fellowship program.

“I see the development of this new program as a way of supporting culturally relevant learning opportunities while extending and enhancing the opportunities for our fellows. We are committed to supporting the flourishing of Black Studies and Indigenous scholars in academia more broadly and to fostering the cross-institutional networks this mobility creates.”