What Makes a Good Fellowship Program?

I co-direct the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School, which has an academic fellowship program for those who want to pursue academic careers at the intersection of law and health policy, bioethics, and biotechnology. We've had a pretty good run, placing two fellows at Harvard, and one each at Berkeley, UCLA, Cornell, BU, Illinois, and Arizona.  I've also observed the Climenko fellow program at Harvard at fairly close range, and other fellowship programs elsewhere a little more distantly as I see students, mentees, or friends take them to go on the market.  And I was a fellow myself.

I think there are an interesting set of questions relating to in what ways the increased prominence of fellowships is a good thing (including what effect they have on how many years of practice the average prof has before starting, the way in which taking 2 years at a very reduced pay may mean these are only open to candidates with certain kinds of income or family obligations, etc), but for this post I want to instead focus on the question: what makes a fellowship program successful? Another way of putting the question that may be particularly relevant at this time of year for those on the fellowship market, what should they be looking for?

Here are some thoughts I have on the matter (no doubt with biases shaped by my own experience and now running a fellowship) in no particular order, but I would definitely love to get others in on the conversation....

1. Quarterbacks: Good fellowship programs take people who will have strong recommenders on the faculty and at least one "quarterback" for every fellow. The "quarterback" (a term I've heard others use), is someone who not only passively recommends a candidate but pushes for them hard, advises them on the market, prods their other recommenders, etc.

Fellowships that are subject-matter specific have an advantage in that those selecting fellows are also the presumptive recommenders and quarterbacks, such that there is a strong amount of buy-in. General fellowships like Climenko work hard to try and do this pairing after a fellow arrives -- I know they assign each Climenko a set of three faculty readers -- but in some programs there may be a gap between those doing the hiring and those who have the subject matter expertise in terms of what they think of a fellow's project. Thus, fellows (once extended an offer) should probe who on the faculty will be assigned to them, whether that person has consented to this arrangement, is an active mentors, and knows their work. They should also think about subject matter and methodological fit.

2. Time. In my opinion, any fellowship offering less than 2 full years of support will make it hard for a fellow to successfully be ready for the market. Fellowships like mine with no required teaching have their benefits -- more time to write -- and their drawbacks -- no teaching evaluations of you when you go on the market, but fellows should get a real sense just how onerous the teaching is. 

Relatedly, I think the more teaching you can do in your own field, the better. You get lots of writing ideas and sophistication from teaching an area. Moreover, if you get an academic job you will be able to have the time you invested here not go to waste.

3. Moot job talk, Moot interview, Other feedback opportunities.

All the fellowships at Harvard Law guarantee those who want them a moot job talk before the faculty, a set of moot interviews, and lots of other feedback opportunities. These are hugely helpful. This is particularly true of the moot job talks which are "public" among the fellows and faculty such that first year fellows can watch the second year fellows on the market do these moot job talks and get a sense of what works and doesn't at the writing stage. These workshops also improve acculturation into talking like a law prof, with all the familiar workshop tropes most of us are now familiar with.

More generally, I think the more structured the fellowship program (outline your first paper by this date to present to your mentors, first full draft here, etc) the better in that it prevents candidates from imploding towards the end or being crushed by perfectionist tendencies.

4. General Institutional Buy-In: This is hard to see from the outside (though I think the Bigelow program, for example, has a good history in this regard). How seriously does the law school take the program? Are the fellows underpaid labor, or are they full members of the intellectual community? These can be subtle things like are fellows allowed to ask questions at workshops or is the norm that they sit quietly? Are they given access to students as RAs as the regular faculty are? Are fellows invited to talks by visiting guests and other social activities where the faculty congregate?

5. Considering Their Own: On this and other blogs there has been significant discussion of the various policies in this regard. But, all things being equal, it is much better to be in a fellowship that might lead to a job at that institution. I know that Harvard, Columbia, and Chicago have all hired their own fellows more than once, but there may be other schools with good track records in this regard too that I don't know about. It is perfectly appropriate for someone with a fellowship offer to ask about the institution's rule in this regard when evaluating that offer.