RHSA offers Reading & Writing Fellowships throughout the school year to promote short-term, enriching extracurricular learning opportunities with a passionate professor who is eager to talk with students about ideas and experiences relevant to that professor’s work.
These fellowships are opportunities to read a great book or watch a powerful documentary selected by a UMass Lowell professor about a subject that the professor is an expert in and that they believe will be of great interest for students. These books and documentaries are selected so that any student, regardless of their major, will be able to understand them and they might cover any subject taught and researched by our faculty. Past examples include fellowships that focus on the lack of a biological basis for human conceptions of race, nuclear energy, new ideas about social justice, the psychology of “grit,” public education, a work of fiction about a first-generation college student, and the power of innovative thinking in the business world.
During Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring Breaks, students are invited to apply to read a book or watch a documentary and write a reflection essay. After the break, students who are selected for a fellowship meet with the professor and a small group of their peers to discuss, in a casual setting, their responses to what they read or watched. Students who successfully complete their fellowship earn a tuition scholarship of $300 if they read a book and $200 if they watched a documentary.