Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting 2027 (Funded) – YOA

Deadline: February 4, 2027

Do you’ve gotten an excellent thought for an schooling-associated journalism undertaking? Do you want the time and assets to finish it? Apply for the Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting 2027.

The Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting is open to journalists and educators who wish to develop and publish an bold lengthy-kind journalism undertaking that advances public understanding of schooling. Four fellows will likely be chosen for this yearlong program based mostly at Columbia Journalism School. The fellowship combines study and analysis with advising from school consultants at Columbia, Teachers College and elsewhere.

Financial Support

• Each residential fellow receives an $85,000 scholarship for private residing bills. The scholarship is distributed in 4 quarters over the course of the educational 12 months. In addition, every fellow receives $7,500 for the 12 months in undertaking bills, additionally distributed in two halves.
• Separately, the Spencer grant covers the price of tuition and different scholar charges, plus primary scholar medical insurance for residential fellows.
• Non-residential fellows obtain a $43,000 stipend and $7,500 undertaking associated bills, distributed in quarters. Health insurance coverage isn’t out there.

Eligibility

• All U.S. residents and inexperienced card holders are eligible, together with working journalists, freelancers and schooling professionals. There isn’t any educational prerequisite. A university diploma isn’t required.
• The most profitable candidates are these with expertise within the discipline of schooling journalism, outlined in broad phrases to incorporate a large swath of disciplines associated to schooling corresponding to juvenile justice, economics, arts and tradition, poverty and the science of studying.
• Judges look for a demonstrated skill to analysis and inform tales in a journalistic type. The power of the undertaking thought is vital, together with the candidate’s potential to finish and publish or produce for a normal viewers.

Application

Required application supplies embrace:

• A resume or CV along with your skilled and academic {qualifications}.
• A brief narrative autobiography highlighting the non-public {and professional} origins of your commitments to schooling and journalism.
• Up to 4 work samples that show your method to utilizing excessive-high quality analysis to inform compelling schooling tales for normal audiences (tales on associated social points may even be accepted). Work samples could embrace e book excerpts, newspaper and journal clips, radio and tv broadcasts, podcast episodes, movie and video excerpts, educational experiences and journal articles, and different codecs.
• A proposal essay describing the undertaking you hope to pursue with a Spencer Fellowship. Judges look for bold, excessive-impression tasks that draw on excessive-high quality analysis and make use of narrative journalism strategies corresponding to intensive interviewing and immersive reporting to discover well timed, related, and underneath-explored subjects in schooling. Please embrace descriptions of any associated works already in progress and clarify how you propose to achieve normal audiences along with your work. All else being equal, judges will prioritize candidates who doc a transparent path to publish or broadcast work produced in the course of the fellowship 12 months. Examples embrace a letter of curiosity from a information group, a e book contract, a distribution take care of a podcast platform, or a broadcast dedication from a tv or radio station. An applicant’s observe report distributing bold work to mainstream audiences through established platforms may even be thought-about.
• A analysis plan describing how you’ll make use of Columbia University assets to materially help your analysis in the course of the fellowship 12 months. University assets provided to all Spencer Fellows embrace knowledgeable mentorship from J-School and different school, entry to Columbia University Libraries, a analysis & journey funds, and common networking alternatives. Residential fellows can also sit in on college programs. Judges worth specificity with regard to analysis questions, coursework plans, professors who may function beneficial content material-space mentors, and different related college assets.
• A quick assertion explaining whether or not you search a residential or non-residential fellowship and why. Residential fellows should stay in New York City or its instant neighborhood in the course of the fellowship 12 months. They obtain an $85,000 stipend. Non-residential fellows could stay anyplace within the U.S. and are required to make a number of journeys (airfare and resort paid by the fellowship) to New York City in the course of the fellowship 12 months. They obtain a $43,000 stipend. For the non-residential fellowship, judges will prioritize candidates who show a hardship in transferring to New York City on account of such boundaries as caregiving tasks, job safety, and monetary considerations.
• Three letters {of professional} advice that attest to such qualities as your work ethic, private character, facility with schooling analysis, creativity in storytelling, and capability to finish bold work that may attain a broad viewers. A documented dedication to publish/broadcast/distribute work produced throughout your fellowship 12 months will depend as considered one of your advice letters.

Click here to apply

For extra info, go to Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting.