RBS-UVA Fellowship Program

Students at the University of Virginia are invited to apply for a fellowship designed to enhance UVA student research employing special collections, including written, printed, and born-digital materials. 

Two young women, one of them in a shirt that says "Virginia" with the UVA logo below it, look at a modern book with metal pages. Beside them another young woman looks at another book, and in the foreground are folded out accordion-style pages of a book made with bright colored paper.

The RBS-UVA Fellowship Program provides UVA undergraduate and graduate students with scholarships to attend RBS’s courses on the history of books and printing—classes are not available through UVA course offerings. The program introduces fellows and their faculty sponsors to visiting peers and professionals in a dynamic environment that fosters hands-on collaborative research and interdisciplinary learning.   

Fellows attend a course at RBS for free (tuition is currently $1,495 or $1,595, depending on the course) and receive a $250 stipend. In addition, the program will award a $500 prize to the most distinguished project from each cohort. 

Thanks to a generous grant made possible by The Jefferson Trust, an initiative of the UVA Alumni Association.

Fellowship Expectations 

Undergraduate and graduate students attend seminars at RBS that directly inform year-long projects they are undertaking. Once accepted to the program, fellows: 

  • Prepare readings for the RBS course to which they have been accepted 
  • Attend an RBS course offered during the year (most RBS courses are offered in June and July) 
  • Fellows may attend either one full-length course or two of the 12-hour online courses 

During their year in the program, fellows will continue to participate in the program through: 

  • Visits to RBS and consultation with RBS faculty and staff during the conduct of their research 
  • The submission of final projects (due by 19 April 2027 for those receiving the fellowship in 2026) to be published on the RBS website (Applicants will retain all rights to their intellectual property.)
  • The program’s annual forum and awards luncheon 
  • The completion of a year-end evaluation of the program

Eligibility

To be eligible for the program, candidates must gain admission to an RBS course, and must be enrolled at UVA through the spring of the following academic year (e.g., a third-year UVA undergraduate applying in spring 2026 would attend a course at RBS in the summer of 2026, complete a project during the semesters spanning fall 2026 and spring 2027, and submit a final project on 19 April 2027). Students cannot apply to the program during the same academic year in which they are graduating.

Email us with any questions

Application Process

Fellowship applications for 2026 have closed. See the calendar below for details about our 2027 round of applications.

To apply to the program, students must: 

  1. Choose your course, and complete a standard RBS course application  (submission in February 2027 is encouraged as courses fill quickly) 
  2. Submit the following materials to  rbsuvafellowship@virginia.edu: 
    • A short essay proposing how an RBS course offered in 2026 will substantially inform a project (i.e., an article, honor’s thesis, dissertation chapter, conference paper) 
    • A confidential letter of recommendation from a UVA faculty member who has agreed to sponsor the project; please have recommenders email their letter to  rbsuvafellowship@virginia.edu  or send a hard copy to: 
      • Rare Book School
        Attn: RBS-UVA Fellowship Committee
        P.O. Box 400103
        Charlottesville, VA 22904-4103 
  3. A C.V. 
  4. An application coversheet (PDF). Use Adobe Reader to fill out and sign this form. (The Mac Preview application may not fill out this form correctly.) Once you have the form saved to your desktop and open with Adobe Reader, click “Sign” to fill out the form. Click on “Place Signature” to sign the document, and then click “Done Signing” to finalize the document. Finally, click on the “Send Signed Document” button to submit the form to us. 

Calendar for Applicants

February 2027 [Dates TBA]

  • Informational Session at Rare Book School’s Event Space (Shannon Library, Second Floor, Room 230). 
  • Project Proposal Workshop at Rare Book School’s Event Space (UVA Shannon Library, Second Floor, Room 230). 
  •  Course application first-round deadline. 

March 2027 [Date TBA]

  • Fellowship application deadline (5:00 p.m. ET).