University of Virginia Library

Last Year: 27

24 NDEA Fellowships Awarded

Twenty-four new National Defense
Education Act (NDEA) graduate
fellowships have been awarded to the
University for the 197-72 school year.

The fellowship program, which was
established in 1958 in the U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare, provides support for graduate
study leading to the Ph.D. in preparation for a
career in college or university teaching. Since
other support is more readily available for the
natural sciences and engineering, universities are
urged to allocate two-thirds of the NDEA
fellowships to humanities, social sciences and
education.

NDEA grants pay $2,400 to the student for
his first year of study with $200 increases for
the second and third years, and $2,500 each
year to the university for tuition and fees.

A total of 2,100 new fellowships have been
awarded this year to 203 institutions in all 50
states. Thirty-seven went to institutions in
Virginia: 24 to the University, 10 to Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, two
to the College of William and Mary and one to
Virginia Commonwealth University.

"The Office of Education evaluates doctoral
programs before approving the use of a
fellowship in a particular department. Our
showing reflects the improvement in our
graduate programs - 30 departments have been
approved for use of NDEA fellowships," says
W. Dexter Whitehead, dead of the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences.

"We are pleased that the University has
maintained its relative position, even though
500 fewer fellowships were awarded nationally
this year," he says.

"The whole NDEA program has been in
some jeopardy lately. Once it was planned to
grant nationally 6,000 new three year
fellowships each year. Instead of 18,000 in use,
we now have only 8,300.

"Continued support of graduate education is
important and although I'm grateful for the
fellowships the University has received, I'm
disturbed by recent decreases in the federal
support of NDEA programs," says Dean
Whitehead.