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The Recruitment of Superior Graduate Students (RSGS) program has
provided impressive resources for select departments to bring to
their graduate programs top-quality, highly sought-after
students. This program, introduced in 1986, provides fellowship
support to graduate programs which have achieved a level of
excellence that makes them nationally competitive for the best
graduate candidates. Through the 2002/2003 fiscal year, the Board
of Regents has provided over one thousand graduate fellowships to
a spectrum of departments at fourteen institutions in Louisiana.
Nearly one hundred of these fellowships were awarded to programs
specifically targeting in-service teachers in mathematics and
science disciplines pursuing master's degrees in Education.
Since 1993 two subprograms have comprised RSGS: Traditional
Graduate Fellows and Graduate Fellowships for Teachers (GFT). The
Traditional subprogram is available to all disciplines on a
rotating basis. Disciplines deemed essential to Louisiana's
economic development, including Biological Sciences, Chemistry,
Computer & Information Sciences, Earth & Environmental
Sciences, Engineering, Health & Medical Sciences, Physics,
and Astronomy, are eligible for funding every year. The remaining
disciplines - Agriculture, Business, Education, Mathematics,
Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences - rotate in two groups, and
are eligible every other year. The Graduate Fellowships for
Teachers subprogram, established in 1993, offers support to pre-
and in-service teachers seeking master's degrees. To apply for
GFT awards, an applicant must offer a program that can be
completed in one academic year plus an additional summer, to
allow teachers to finish within a single year's sabbatical from
the classroom. Fellowship recipients, further, must pledge to
teach in a Louisiana school system for at least one year after
completing the master's degree, to ensure that Louisiana students
reap some of the benefits of the State's support of these
teachers. Together the GF and GFT subprograms provide a
comprehensive opportunity for departments across the State to
receive assistance in the training and support of graduate
students.
RSGS is a competitive program that awards to graduate departments
and units with established records of excellence stipend support
for truly superior graduate-level recruits. The competition
established to determine awards is rigorous and selective. A
panel of out-of-state, non-partisan experts, generally comprised
of graduate deans and associate deans, reviews proposals on an
annual basis, and recommends for funding those most
representative of and best able to achieve the goals of the
program. Between thirty and forty graduate programs receive some
level of fellowship support each year. While the number of
fellowships granted to each department is usually small, the
effects of limited funding reverberate through the programs,
raising the quality of their applicant pools, encouraging faculty
to seek out exceptional student candidates, and signaling to the
university the high quality of these graduate programs.
Since the emphasis of RSGS is on recruitment, grant recipients
are expected to focus their attention after the award is
announced on aggressive activities to draw attention and
applications from pools of excellent students. No funding is
awarded, therefore, in the first year after awards are announced,
to allow departments time to undertake full recruitment efforts.
Departments set their own measures of excellence for student
applicants and are encouraged rate student achievement across a
spectrum of elements from faculty recommendations to grade point
averages. Appointment of fellowship recipients is also left
entirely to the discretion of graduate programs. The Board of
Regents maintains oversight through required recruitment reports
which provide essential data on the activities undertaken to
attract and select candidates, as well as appointed fellows'
backgrounds and qualifications.
Once a BoRSF graduate fellowship recipient is enrolled, he/she is
guaranteed, depending on the level and duration of the degree
program undertaken and on maintenance of academic performance,
one to four years of stipend support. In recent years stipends
have ranged, based on the discipline and national trends in
graduate support, from $10,000 to $20,000 per student. The level
of stipend support is determined by the review panel, based on
the principal investigator's request and the panel's knowledge of
national trends and norms. Several graduate programs supplement
the stipends awarded by the Board of Regents with additional
funds, to ensure their competitiveness to even the strongest
candidates. In addition, all candidates are provided tuition
waivers by their enrolling institutions as part of the grant's
cost sharing commitments. The Board does not permit fellowship
recipients to work as teaching or research assistants unless the
principal investigator justifies the work as a necessary part of
a student's professional development. This policy provides
students with the freedom to pursue their academic studies and
research projects unfettered by distractions or other commitments
that often can overshadow degree-related work and lead to high
attrition rates.
