Penn undergraduate students have the opportunity to participate in the Penn Humanities Forum through a fellowship program and, beginning in 2006, a special essay contest.

Each year, a number of Undergraduate Humanities Forum Research Fellowships are offered to promote undergraduate research in the humanities and cultivate the importance of humanistic thought across all disciplines.

Interested candidates should be conducting work related to the Forum's theme for the year in which the award is granted. Calls for applications are solicited in February of the year preceding the fellowship.

One $1500 PHF Coordinating Research Fellowship and approximately eighteen PHF Research Fellowships at $600 each are available each year. Applicants are drawn from students across Penn, as well as from the university's twelve undergraduate College Houses.

PHF Undergraduate Research Fellows are expected to participate as a group in regular lunch or dinner meetings throughout the year, during which, often with guest faculty, they discuss their ongoing research. Fellows also must give a formal presentation of their research in the spring semester of their fellowship year.

Calls for application are posted each year in January. The topic for 2008–2009 will be Change. The application deadline is March 15th for each subsequent year's fellowship. Full fellowship guidelines and application are available on the Forum's website during each Call for Applications cycle (January–March 15).