Terms of Reference

1. To be eligible to apply for a Graduate Fellowship (GF), a student must be registered as a full-time, regular (not "on-leave") student in a Master’s or Doctoral program.  In programs where fees are assessed on a per-credit basis, students must be taking at least six credit hours to be eligible to receive a Graduate Fellowship.
2. Eligible students must normally have a minimum first-class (3.50) grade point average during the last year of full-time study. In exceptional cases, other evidence of outstanding ability may outweigh this criterion. Since academic merit is the primary criterion for ranking eligible applicants, departments must notify all applicants in advance if additional criteria will be used.
3. Students will be eligible to hold a GF only during the first 9 semesters of a Master's program and during the first 15 semesters of a Ph.D. program.
4. Students who did not complete a Master's program before transferring into a Phd are eligilible to hold the GF within the first 15 semesters of their PhD, from the PhD start date. 
5. GFs will be awarded in increments of .5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0. A partial GF (.5) is valued at $3,125; a full GF (1.0) is valued at $6,250. Applicants may be eligible to receive up to a maximum of two full GFs, or four partial GFs, during the academic year (September 1 – August 31).
6. GF recipients are eligible to hold other scholarships funded from SFU sources.
7. Graduate Fellowship recipients may accept other scholarship support from external funding sources including SFU’s ‘private’ awards (derived from annual and endowed funds). Recipients should be aware that some external awards may restrict students from holding a GF at the same time as the external award. If the total of the GF and other external support exceeds $50,000 per annum, the value of the GF will be reduced so that the total equals $50,000.
8. There is no restriction on GF recipients receiving income for work performed during tenure of the GF.
9. Application is made on the Application for a Graduate Fellowship. The annual application deadline to the department of enrolment is April 15^th.
10. Awards are made by the Senate Graduate Awards Adjudication Committee on the recommendations of the Departmental Graduate Program Committee.
    

Revised: May 2010