Call for Proposals: Student Research Fellow Program 2014-15

USC Shoah Foundation -- The Institute for Visual History and Education invites proposals for its 2014 Student Research Fellow program. The fellowship provides support during summer 2014 or one designated semester of the 2014-2015 academic year for USC undergraduate and graduate students interested in doing research at the Visual History Archive. 

The Institute’s Visual History Archive holds nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other eyewitnesses to the Holocaust and the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide. The interviews were taken in 33 languages and in 57 countries. They encompass the experience of survivors as well as liberators, rescuers, and post-genocide trial participants. As these interviews are life histories, their subject matter includes the history and culture of the countries of the interviewees’ birth and their lives before, during and after the genocides. The interviews average 2 hours in length and offer a wealth of possibilities for integration into many disciplines’ coursework. To see a list of the previous recipients, please visit http://sfi.usc.edu/research/fellowships/research_fellows.

Award decisions will be based on:

• The centrality of the testimonies to the project
• The centrality of the project to the student’s overall coursework and goals
• The amount of work necessary to identify the best material and incorporate it into the course
• The originality of the proposal
• Preference will also be given to applicants who have not previously received this award

Stipends will be awarded in the amount of $1,000 for graduate and $600 for undergraduate fellows. 

Students will be expected to spend 60 hours conducting research in the offices of the USC Shoah Foundation over the duration of their fellowship. Following the fellowship period, students will be expected to give a staff talk based on their work and findings and submit their final written work for archiving.

To apply, please submit a cover letter, project proposal for how you plan to spend your research time, and a resume or CV to Institute’s Associate Director of Research, Dan Leshem at dleshem@usc.edu.

To be considered for the 2014-2015 academic year, proposals are due by Friday February 21, 2014.

Awards will be announced by Monday March 17, 2014.