The William S. Lee Doctoral Fellowship Program is intended to provide the doctoral programs in The William States Lee College of Engineering with an enhancement to attract exceptional graduate students for PhD study and research at UNC Charlotte.  A strong preference is given to US citizens.

The fellowship awards, which initially are to be in the amount of $7500 payable over 12 months period, are to be supplemental to the program’s normal graduate stipend, which may be no smaller than the average stipend amount for the cohort being recruited.  Additionally, the Fellows are to receive tuition remission from the program for the periods during which they hold fellowships.  The fellowships are renewable for a second year given satisfactory academic progress by the recipient.

The administration of this fellowship program will be the responsibility of the Associate Dean of The William States Lee College of Engineering.  Each year the available fellowships will be assigned to the PhD programs of the college on a rotational basis.  The program coordinators will be advised well in advance of the recruiting season as the availability of fellowships for their specific programs.  Graduate coordinators will recommend their nominees for fellowship awards to the associate dean.  Fellowship awards are made by the Dean of The William States Lee College of Engineering upon the recommendation of the Associate Dean for Graduate Study and Research.   The dean or the associate dean will annually host a dinner with representatives of the Duke Energy Corporation and all current William S. Lee Doctoral Fellow.

The graduate coordinator of each program shall advise the associate dean on the appropriateness of renewing the fellowship for each of the Fellows in his or her program.  The dean is authorized to make modest adjustments in the dollar amounts of the fellowship awards in response to competitive pressure and/or the availability of fellowship funds.

The fellowship program will begin with the fall 2000 recruiting season during which the electrical engineering PhD program and the mechanical engineering PhD program will each have one full fellowship.