The Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG) has received a generous endowment gift to support its highly competitive fellowship program for graduate students. Thanks to the generosity of Michael and Barbara Wilsey, the program will now be known as the Wilsey Distinguished Graduate Fellowship program.

"Mike and Bobbie Wilsey have been visionary supporters of ethics at Notre Dame," says Meghan Sullivan, Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of ECG and the Notre Dame Ethics Initiative. "Their early investment in the God and the Good Life course has gone on to benefit thousands of ND undergraduates, and that same mission is now transforming ND doctoral students. Because of their support, the Wilsey Distinguished Graduate fellows will grow into the next generation of life-changing teachers and thinkers who are able to shed new light on some of the most complex ethical questions our society faces. We could not be more grateful for the Wilseys' partnership."

The Wilsey Distinguished Graduate Fellowship program is a year-long, interdisciplinary cohort experience that equips dissertating graduate students to carry out boundary-pushing research in ethics. Through the program, which was created in partnership with the College of Arts and Letters, fellows deepen their vocational discernment, expand their skills for engaging public audiences, and grow their professional network as they work in community with other scholars from across the University and beyond.

“The most pressing ethical challenges that we face are interdisciplinary in nature,” said Jeff Tolly, ECG Assistant Director of Educational Initiatives. “To solve those problems, students need to apply a range of analytical tools from different disciplines—and being embedded in an interdisciplinary community is the best way to do that."

That community includes not only other Wilsey Distinguished Graduate Fellows—five awards are made each academic year—but also ECG's cohort of faculty fellows, who are scholars from universities throughout the world who spend a year doing research on a specific ethics project while in residence at Notre Dame. All ECG fellows participate in weekly seminars that focus on work in progress, providing a regular context for feedback and support.

"'Generative' is the word I would use to sum up my experience," says Makella Brems, a member of the 2023-24 cohort of fellows. "The fellowship program introduced me to all sorts of wonderfully thoughtful people (graduate students, faculty, staff, and guest speakers) who went out of their way to ask great questions that helped me produce more well-rounded, well-defined, intentional research. During my fellowship year, I had access to the type of intellectual community most scholars fantasize about but doubt actually exists."

Graduate fellows have presented at conferences, published articles in journals, and earned prestigious dissertation fellowships and post-doc positions.

Henry Downes, a member of the 2023-24 fellows cohort, received a highly competitive graduate dissertation fellowship from the Economic History Association which is providing him with $10,000 in support this year as he finishes his disseration at Notre Dame.

"As we progress toward completing our dissertations, there are many forces that compel graduate students to draw inward," says Downes. "We are told that we should be hyper-specialized, to become domain experts in some niche in our respective fields, no matter how small. Guidance of this sort is generally framed as a strategic imperative for getting a job and getting ahead. In the graduate fellowship program, I found a fresh perspective—one that drew me outward. I was encouraged to think divergently about how different research areas may hang together, and how to broaden the appeal of my work to non-specialist audiences. I’ve relied on these critical skills to write successful grant and fellowship proposals. I also am now in position on the job market to apply to a wide variety of jobs and work productively alongside scholars from many different backgrounds, and that would not have been possible without my training as a fellow."

Wilsey Distinguished Graduate Fellows receive a premium stipend of $42,000, a $1,000 research account, release from teaching assistant duties and other departmental service, and a dedicated office space in ECG. To qualify for the fellowships, Ph.D. fellows must be fourth or fifth year graduate students in good standing in the College of Arts and Letters, which includes students in the joint Keough-CAL PhD programs.

The application for the 2025-2026 Wilsey Distinguished Graduate Fellowship program will open in December 2024, and be due in early March, 2025. Learn more about this program at https://ethics.nd.edu/fellowships-and-grants/graduate/.

2024-25 COHORT OF WILSEY DISTINGUISHED GRADUATE FELLOWS

Rebecca Cobern Kates - Philosophy, “Emotions and the Ethics of Perception”
Antônio Lemos - Theology, "The Right to Travel and Dwell in the 16th-Century Spanish Scholastics: A Historical Retrieval in Theological Migration Ethics"
Laura López-Pérez - Political Science, “High-Risk Activism in Criminal Wars: The Collective Action of Victims’ Families in Mexico”
Matthew Mullin - English, "Affirmative Estrangement in Early Modern English Literature"
Benjamin J. Young - History, “Suburbs of Zion: Evangelicals and the Making of the Metropolitan South, 1940-2000”

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The Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG) facilitates interdisciplinary research in foundational and applied ethics, coordinates projects that cross departments and units, and supports ethics-related education and public engagement efforts. ECG is a signature element of the Ethics Initiative, one of several University-wide strategic efforts that draw on expertise from multiple colleges, schools, centers, and institutes in order to make the most meaningful contributions to questions of national and international concern.

Originally published by Laura Moran Walton at ethics.nd.edu on October 01, 2024.