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How to Apply

This resource will give you details on how to prepare your application to be a CDIP fellow. In addition to the completed application form, you'll need to supply these documents.

Apply to CDIP

Curriculum Vitae

Include a current resume or curriculum vitae (CV), limited to four pages. Your CV should focus on your academic and professional accomplishments, including scholarly conference presentations at regional or national meetings and publications (e.g., peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, books).

Qualification and Motivation Statement

Describe your qualifications for the Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program. The statement should be limited to three single-sided pages and should address how the following have contributed to your commitment to become a CSU faculty member:

  • academic preparation (e.g., academic achievements, awards, honors, and fellowships);
  • professional experiences in teaching and research;
  • motivation and interest in becoming a university professor (both as a teacher and a fellow);
  • connection to the CSU (e.g., former/current CSU student or lecturer, knowledge of the CSU mission and role in preparing California’s workforce);
  • dedication and ability to educate a diverse student body.

Please note: Students from a professional and/or online doctoral degree program (see Participant Eligibility) must address in their Qualifications and Motivation Statement their professional goal as a university faculty member. This also needs to be addressed in the mentor’s letter of recommendation.

Sample Statements: Sample 1 | Sample 2

Note: The samples indicate the range of styles, content and format that CDIP applicants use in the Qualifications and Motivation Statement attachments. All identifying information has been removed from these actual submitted statements.

Collaborative Plan of Support

Applicants to the program must have a CSU faculty mentor. The faculty mentor must be full-time tenured/tenure-track CSU faculty member. The objectives of the mentor/student interactions are to assist the student in his/her doctoral program, to help the student understand the workings of higher education institutions and the faculty labor market specific to particular disciplines, and to aid the student in the development of skills relevant to success as a CSU tenure-track faculty member. Please see faculty mentor for more information about CDIP faculty mentor’s role and eligibility.

Faculty mentor and applicant are required to jointly develop a written plan of support describing how they intend to maintain communication and collaborate. The plan should describe clearly defined activities with a timeline that is designed to assist the applicant through his/her doctoral studies. The quality of this support plan is critically important in the application selection process.

The contents of the plan may vary depending on the prior contact that the applicant may have had with the faculty and the extent to which he/she is acclimated to the demands of a doctoral program and the expectations of future faculty in the CSU. Detailed instructions can be found in the ​CDIP Application Guidelines under Competition files on InfoReady.

Samples for Plan of Support: Sample 1 | Sample 2

Note: The samples indicate the range of styles, content and format that CDIP applicants use in the Collaborative Plan of Support attachments. All identifying information has been removed from these actual submitted statements.

CSU Faculty Position Announcement

The faculty mentor should provide the student applicant, for inclusion with his/her application, a copy of a recent tenure-track faculty position announcement in the student’s general field of study that has been posted at a CSU campus. The purpose of the job posting is to provide evidence that the CSU has recently sought to hire individuals in the field/specialization pursued by the applicant. The existence of a job posting in the student’s field does not imply or guarantee that similar jobs will be available when the participant applies for employment in the CSU. However, the lack of a relevant job posting in recent years may indicate that there is little demand for faculty in the field pursued by the student.

Letters of Recommendation

Two current professional letters of recommendation are required that address:

  • the quality of applicant’s proposed plan of study (including the quality of the institutions and departments where applicant intends to pursue his/her degree);
  • applicant’s potential to succeed as a doctoral student and be hired as a CSU tenure-track instructional faculty (particularly important for professional and/or online doctoral degree program applicants);
  • applicant’s experience and motivation relevant to educating a diverse student body in the CSU.
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