Two departmental graduate students, Zheng Mu (Sociology) and Siwei Cheng (Public Policy & Sociology) have received Barbour Scholarships for the 2013-2014 academic year from the Rackham Graduate School.  The Barbour Scholarships are among the oldest and most prestigious awards granted by the University of Michigan. 

This full-year fellowship includes an academic year stipend, full tuition, and health insurance.

Congratulations Zheng and Siwei!

 

About the Barbour Fellowship 

Levi Lewis Barbour received an undergraduate degree and law degree from UM in the 1860s, and he later went on to become a University Regent.  As a prominent lawyer and Detroit real estate developer, Mr. Barbour accumulated the means to become a philanthropist devoted to humanitarian and educational causes.  Traveling in Asia in the early part of the 20th century, Mr. Barbour was impressed by the remarkable contributions being made by two women in China who had been trained in medicine at the University of Michigan.  Out of that trip came his plan to leave an endowment to assist Asian women to prepare academically at UM for positions of status and leadership in their own countries, and facilitate a closer understanding between Eastern and Western cultures.

Income from the Barbour Scholarship Endowment supports annual competitive scholarships awarded to women who are citizens of countries formerly known as the Orient (encompassing the large region extending from Turkey in the west to Japan and the Philippines in the east) and who are enrolled in any of the University’s graduate programs. Since 1914, when the first Barbour Scholarships were granted, more than 600 students have received the award. The Barbour alumnae have played important roles in the political, educational, industrial, and social development of institutions in their home countries, and they have made important contributions to their scholarly fields in the United States as well.