The College of Graduate Studies and Research is delighted to announce the fifth competition of the Dean’s Scholarship Program. The intent of Dean’s Scholarships is to attract high caliber students to the University of Saskatchewan. These awards will be offered to students who have outstanding academic records, show research promise and are registering for the first time in a thesis or dissertation-based graduate program in May or September of 2011 at the University of Saskatchewan.
Note: Students at the University of Saskatchewan transferring to a Ph.D. in January
must be nominated in the December round of the Dean’s Scholarship Competition.
If a student is transferring to a Ph.D. program and is successful in the December round,
his or her Dean’s Scholarship must be taken up in January.
A Dean’s Ph.D. Scholar will receive $20,000 for a one-year term, with a possible 12-month renewal year pending satisfactory progress toward completion of the degree. In the context of this award, satisfactory progress includes: maintaining an 85% GPA on at least 6 cu of courses completed after registration at the U of S, endorsement of the student’s research proposal by the graduate advisory committee and successful completion of the qualifying exam. The academic unit or supervisor must guarantee an additional (3rd) year of funding at the same level as above, which may require some service depending upon the source of funding. A Dean’s Master’s Scholar will receive $18,000 in the first year of his/her program and the department or supervisor will guarantee an additional year at the same level of support, pending satisfactory progress toward completion of the degree. This matching support may require some service depending upon the source of funding. While receiving support from the Dean’s Scholarship fund, students may be expected to provide a maximum of 4 hours per week for 2 terms during a 12-month period.
Because Dean’s Scholars are expected to apply for national, preferably Tri-Council, awards, it is appropriate to apply the standards used in recommending candidates for these awards. To be eligible, the student’s entrance GPA, as determined by the College of Graduate Studies and Research, must be at least 85.0%. Under exceptional circumstances a student with an entrance grade between 80% and 85% and promise of research potential, as indicated by previous research productivity may be considered. Evidence of previous research productivity would include, as examples, authorship or co-authorship of a refereed journal publication or a conference presentation/publication for a student applying for support at the Master’s level; and 2 journal publications or 3 conference presentations/publications for a student applying for Doctoral support.
Preference will be given to Ph.D. applicants and Canadian citizens. Preference also will be given to students proposing to work with faculty who hold external (especially Tri-Council) funding or have held such funding in the recent past. Because the Dean’s Scholarship Program is established as a tool to assist in attracting high quality students into our programs, students transferring from a Master’s to a Ph.D. may be nominated but will be considered of lower priority. If a student has completed a Master’s degree and is pursuing a PhD at the U of S that will start in January, May or September of 2011 they are also eligible to be nominated for a Dean’s Scholarship.
Nominations must be submitted by the Graduate Chair by 12:00 noon on the 3rd Thursday of the month for each round of competitions (Dec. to March).
A complete nomination package must be submitted by the Graduate Chair and will include the following:
1) A completed Dean’s Scholarship nomination form;
2) Photocopies of official transcripts
3) Photocopies of the 3 letters of recommendation (GSR 101)
4) List of publications (Use the following headings on the separate page: Referred journal articles, Papers in proceedings, Conference presentations)
5) List of Awards (Following the list of publications, list awards held, their associated monetary values and period held)
6) • If a student nominated for this competition is to be supervised by a faculty member who is supervising/or supervised a Dean’s Scholar from a previous competition, but who did not hold Tri-Council funding, as required below in the “Requirements of Awardees and Associated Supervisors”, must provide documentation that an application for Tri-Council funding has been submitted otherwise the faculty member is ineligible to supervise another Dean’s Scholar.
Monthly competitions will be held from December through March (4 Rounds) with approximately $125,000 available each month. Nominees not awarded a Dean’s Scholarship in one round will automatically be re-considered in subsequent rounds in that year; nominators need not submit revised forms for subsequent rounds. Funds unused in the first three rounds will roll forward to the following round. Grad Chairs must submit their recommendations to the College of Graduate Studies and Research, Room C180 Administration Building by 12:00 noon on the 3rd Thursday of each month in order to have their candidates considered.
Requirements of Awardees and Associated Supervisors:
All eligible awardees must submit an application for tri-council funding for consideration in the 2011-2012 competition. In addition, recipients of the doctoral awards must submit a research proposal that is endorsed by the student’s graduate advisory committee and must successfully complete the qualifying exam within the first year in order to be eligible for funding from the Dean’s Scholarship Program during the second year. Funding from the Dean’s Scholarship Program will be discontinued if these requirements are not met.
Similarly, faculty supervisors of Dean’s Scholars who do not currently hold funding from a tri-council agency and have not applied for funding from a tri-council agency within the last 2 years must submit an application that will be considered by a tri-council agency within the 2011-2012 round of competition. Failing to meet this requirement will jeopardize the faculty supervisor’s success in subsequent applications to the Dean’s Scholarship Program.
The CGSR Dean’s Scholarship recipients are required to apply for national funding from the Tri-Council Funding Agencies (NSERC, SSRHC, and CIHR). Should a Dean’s Scholarship recipient be successful in a national competition he or she must decline the Dean’s Scholarship. The recipient will remain eligible to receive a $3,000 top up per year from the Dean’s Scholarship Fund for the tenure of his or her national award. In the event that the Tri-Council Award is less than the Dean’s scholarship the difference will be provided when the student takes up the Tri-Council Award.
Calculation of grades for the nominations will be as follows:
Entering Master’s Student
In assessing grade point averages (GPAs) for consideration of entry into graduate studies, using undergraduate transcripts, a course taken is a course credited, no matter if it is or is not in the student’s field of study. To calculate the GPA for an undergraduate student, we will consider, as a minimum, the most recent sixty credit units completed by the student. If a student has completed less than a full load in the last two years, we will go back into the academic record until we have a minimum of sixty credit units. In some cases, the student’s GPA will be calculated based on more than sixty credit units, because we do not take portions of the previous term to reach the sixty credit units. Grades from all courses within the term will be included in the GPA calculation.
Transferring from a Master’s to PhD
If a student is in a Master’s program and is transferring to a PhD, grades for all courses completed to date during the Master’s program will be used to calculate the most recent cumulative GPA.
Entering PhD Student
The cumulative average of all courses completed in the Master’s program will be recorded as the cumulative GPA for an entering PhD student.
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