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Applications close June 30th.

The Harvard Catholic Forum offers non-credit courses, public lectures, reading groups,  sacred music events, and other programs in which the Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition engages the academy, the professions, and the arts. Student Fellows have a special involvement in the Forum: they join a lively intellectual community, undertake educational projects with the Forum’s support, and are invited to smaller, informal gatherings with Catholic scholars and scientists.


Most Fellows are current students at Harvard (College, FAS, or the professional schools), but current students from other area universities, as well as post-docs, are welcome to apply. Fellows are Catholic or seriously considering becoming Catholic, for example by joining RCIA. The target number of Fellows is twelve, although there may be somewhat more or less. 

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FELLOWS RECEIVE

  • Invitations to dinners or lunches with program speakers and other faculty, including distinguished scholars, scientists, and prelates, typically about six per year,

  • Invitations to periodic Fellows-only gatherings, typically lunches or dinners, as well as an end-of year dinner with faculty and clergy, offering intellectual friendship with others devoted to Catholic intellectual life

  • Early notice of opportunities from the Forum and other institutes offering programs in the Catholic tradition, through regular communications from the Executive Director or Program Director

  • Facilities, planning and organizational support, outreach/networking to aid Fellows who wish to form groups or develop programs around a common interest.

  • Occasional invitations to lunches and dinners with speakers and instructors.

Fellows Commitments

Fellows are required to attend the Foundational Seminar, which will take place Saturday, September 6, 2025 at 12PM to gather as a community, study a foundational text, learn about the Forum’s mission, and discuss place of the Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition in the secular university. 


In addition, Fellows commit to undertake at least one project, sketched out in the application, consistent with their fields of interest, talents, and goals, as well as with the Forum’s mission. Projects are of two types:

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  1. AN EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM, for which the Forum provides venue, announcements, meals/receptions, registration, and books/ honoraria as applicable. Examples:

    • A reading group, proposed and facilitated by 1-2 Fellows typically meeting 4-7 times; 10-15 participants read and discuss a work or possibly selections (recently, a selection of texts in Catholic Social Thought, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility; George Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian; Josef Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture)). 

    • Support/ organization by 1-2 Fellows for a series of up to four Fellows gatherings during the year, to include a meal, possible discussion topic and/or invited guest

    • An ongoing discussion group focused on a particular area of interest, organized and facilitated by 1-2 Fellows and supported/sponsored by the Forum (recently, a discussion group on Neuroscience and the Embodied Person, and theology discussions of the Ratzinger Memorial Society)

    • Planning and organizational support for an invited speaker in a field of interest to the Fellow, usually including a lunch/dinner and reception (recently, the visit by , Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda).
      o    Instruction in an area where the Fellow has competence (recently, a Choral Singing Workshop and a full-year Introduction to Christian Latin).

    • Presentation of research/thesis that engages the Catholic tradition, typically one session with talk, Q&A/conversation, and refreshments (recently, undergraduate thesis presentations on Orestes Brownson and masters’s thesis presentation on Greek Religion Scholarship).

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Fellows are welcome to propose other programs in a variety of formats touching on dimensions of the Catholic tradition, e.g. in science, philosophy, literature and the arts, music, history, medicine and psychology, law, or public policy.

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Fellows work out in advance with the Forum the criteria for participation in the Fellow’s program, which may be student-only, undergraduate-only, or general audience. Fellows may and indeed are encouraged to propose programs co-sponsored with other organizations such as university chaplaincies and related groups, departments/institutes, or student clubs/groups of various kinds.
 

  1. STRUCTURED OUTREACH TO A PARTICULAR AUDIENCE. This role supports the Forum’s mission through organizational efforts and outreach: to an existing Catholic student organization; or to students/faculty, whether Catholic or non-Catholic, within a university interest group (as in area studies, music, or the arts) or in one of the graduate or professional schools. The Fellow would expand and deepen the Forum’s presence with this audience, and draw participants to Forum events, by some combination that may include emailing to a particular list, social media, postering, announcement at meetings and/or liturgies, having the group co-sponsor events with the Forum, and word of mouth.

 

COMPOSITION OF THE FELLOWS GROUP

The Fellows are a diverse group in their interests and disciplines. They are a mix of undergraduate and graduate students, and in some cases post-docs. As a target, three or four may be committed primarily to an outreach project; the remaining eight or nine are mainly committed to an educational program. Fellows are welcome and encouraged to propose both kinds of projects if they are able and willing to do so.

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