UNC News Service

CHAPEL HILL — Twenty-seven new graduate students from around the world are beginning their first semester at UNC Chapel Hill with five-year fellowships in the Royster Society of Fellows.

These students were recruited to Chapel Hill with highly competitive fellowships funded by private gifts. For the first time this year, 11 students were recruited with Chancellor’s Fellowships, awarded by the graduate school as part of the Royster Society of Fellows program.

“We are extremely appreciative of Chancellor Holden Thorp’s recognition that we need to attract the best and brightest graduate students to Carolina. The quality of this university depends on it,” said Steve Matson, dean of the graduate school. “This new funding for Chancellor’s Fellows has enabled graduate programs across the university to successfully compete with the best institutions in the country for these exceptional graduate students.”

The Royster Society of Fellows was endowed in the late 1990s by Dr. Thomas S. and Mrs. Carolina H. Royster to attract outstanding graduate students to Carolina. It provides full financial support, interdisciplinary learning, professional development and a mentoring network to enable students to excel in their graduate studies. More than 100 students receive funding and participate in the Royster Society of Fellows of the Graduate School each year.

A committee of faculty decides which applicants will be offered the fellowships based upon their academic performance, research, work, service and life experiences, and their promise for leadership in the future.