This scholarship program is not run through the International Academic Programs office at UMKC. Therefore the APPLY NOW button has been removed. If you wish to apply to this scholarship program, please see information below.  If you would like to consult with a Fellowships Advisor, please click request info above.

In 1945, as it became clear that the G.I. Bill would soon bring unprecedented numbers of students onto college campuses around the United States, Princeton University professor Whitney Oates worried that promising scholars who had left the academy to fight in World War II would not return to pursue advanced degrees and become college teachers. He and Princeton’s graduate dean, Sir Hugh Taylor, persuaded Miss Isabelle Kemp, a private donor, to support the first of a group of graduate fellowships that would attract veterans back to academic careers.

Soon leaders nationwide realized the urgent need for a new generation of outstanding college and university professors. In 1949, the Carnegie Corporation granted Princeton $100,000 to extend its fellowship program nationwide. Now called the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program—in honor of Princeton’s best-known leader and academic innovator—the effort remained small until 1957. In that year the Ford Foundation granted $24.5 million to support 1,000 fellowships each year for five years, and the program became a new independent nonprofit, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Over the subsequent decade and a half, the Foundation selected and supported more than 15,000 Woodrow Wilson Fellows. These Fellows became intellectual leaders not only within the academy, but also in government, the corporate world, and the nonprofit sector. Today, they include 14 Nobel Laureates, 35 MacArthur Fellows, 14 Pulitzer Prize winners, and hundreds of other distinguished individuals—as well as everyday classroom heroes.

Eligibility varies

For more information, deadlines and application, please visit http://woodrow.org/