The Brueggeman Fellows
The Winter-Cohen Family Brueggeman Fellows Program at the Brueggeman Center offers up to 8 students each year the chance to combine a year of independent study with an international immersion experience. Each fellow is awarded a research/travel stipend of $3,500 for the purpose of completing an independent project. The program is highly competitive and draws from graduate and undergraduate students from all four colleges and a wide range of disciplines. Meet the 2023-2024 Brueggeman Fellows.
The students are chosen based upon the strength of their proposal, a sense that they have the maturity to do independent research and travel and the potential for their project to be transformative for them and for others. Students need to have a GPA of 3.5 to apply.
The Fellows Program has three goals:
- Research. Our goal is that the Fellows will acquire deep learning about a topic of their choosing from a global perspective.
- Immersion. The immersion experience is exponentially impactful because each Fellow has to not only plan every aspect of their trip but eventually get off a plane somewhere in the world and deal with what they have created. The totality of the experience is transformative - in ways we can see immediately and in ways that will manifest in unexpected ways in the future.
- Self-Confidence. During every step of the program we work to help students develop a new level of self-confidence by challenging them to conceive, plan and complete a program that begins with a yearlong independent study, followed by an immersion trip to engage in research and service. They must plan every aspect of this trip themselves; create the research network of people and institutions with whom they will work; and plan all the travel, housing and logistics details. This entails managing an ever-changing set of challenges which includes the demands of the research, language acquisition, if necessary; food, illness, transportation, loneliness and cultural adaptation.
To date, the Center has sent more than 120 students to more than 60 different countries.
Each year's cohort is chosen from all four of Xavier's colleges. In addition to an intensive year of research on their individual projects, the Fellows participate in an interdisciplinary learning community with all the other Fellows. The Fellows and their faculty mentors all become each other's teachers.
The program is high risk and high reward---our Fellows often travel to some of the most challenging places on Earth. The Winter-Cohen Fellows program offers intellectual, moral, and spiritual self-discovery and growth that will have a lifelong impact on the lives of the Fellows.
Take a Risk, Be Transformed—is fundamental to every dialogical encounter and collaborative engagement in which the Center is involved. It is superlatively true of the Fellows Program. To learn about the transformative impact of the Fellows’ experiences in their own words, see our page of Brueggeman Moments.
To apply to be a fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year, submit the following completed application materials by April 2, 2024 (this deadline has been extended from March 15):
- Brueggeman Fellowship cover sheet
- An unofficial copy of your college transcript
- A signed transcript release form
- A 2-page personal statement describing your interesting in being a Fellow, the type of research in which you plan to engage, and your ideas for how international travel will enhance your research. Be as specific as possible. Applicants are also strongly encouraged to explain how their project connects to the overall mission of the Brueggeman Center.
View the brochure for the Winter-Cohen Family Brueggeman Fellowship
Any questions regarding the application process can be directed to legaultm@xavier.edu.