Columbia Central

Nathan Breitling Poetry Fellowship

for continuing graduate students

The Nathan Breitling Poetry Fellowship was established to assist one talented MFA Poetry student each year in defraying tuition costs.

Deadline to Apply: February 01, 2025

• How to Apply

  Visit Internal Scholarships and click on APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIPS to access the College-Wide Graduate Scholarship Application. Only complete scholarship applications submitted by the deadline will be reviewed by the scholarship committee. 
  
  Please follow all directions carefully. Students must submit the following materials to make a complete Nathan Breitling Poetry Fellowship application. There are two parts to the application:

  PART 1: ESSAY

  Submit an essay of 300-500 words describing why you write.

  PART 2: CREATIVE SAMPLES

  Submit a typed sample of 8-10 pages of your poetry of any length and form. If your poems are separately delineated from each other, please do not put more than one poem on each page.

  Your submission must include your name and MyColumbia ID number in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Please upload your response in .pdf, .doc, or .docx format.
  
  

  Access online applications through Internal Scholarships.

• About Nathan Breitling

  The Nathan Breitling Poetry Fellowship honors the memory of Nathan Breitling, a graduate of the Columbia College Chicago MFA Poetry Program. The fellowship was established by Nathan’s parents, Robert and Susan, and his sister, Lauren.

  A poet, teacher, and Eagle Scout, Nathan graduated from Palatine High School in 2004 and matriculated at Illinois Wesleyan College in Bloomington, Illinois. He was an outstanding student in their English and German language programs. He also managed the campus radio station for three years and contributed many hours of "crazy" content for his fellow students and Bloomington residents to enjoy.

  After graduating from Wesleyan, Nathan attended Columbia College Chicago, where he received his MFA in Poetry in 2011. Nathan continued at Columbia College as an adjunct professor, teaching freshman English classes for several years. He taught English in South Korea for a year before returning home.

  One of his lifelong goals was to see his poems published. Several of his poems have appeared recently in poetry magazines, and he would have cherished the knowledge that his poems are out in the world, resonating with other readers and writers.

  He will be dearly missed by his family and many friends from Wesleyan and Columbia, but mostly by his dear sister and loving parents.

  

• Fellowship Terms
  • Application must be submitted by February 1, 2025 (11:59 pm) for review by the committee
  • Previous amount of this one-year fellowship was up to $2,750, awarded half in Fall and half in Spring
  • Fellowship is applied toward tuition only
  • Students’ scholarships that are applied toward tuition may not exceed the amount of their tuition costs
  • Recipients must maintain enrollment in the Creative Writing, MFA program with a concentration in Poetry during the 2025-26 academic year
  • Recipients who graduate in Fall 2025 may receive the full fellowship amount in Fall 2025
  • Graduate students enrolled in a 0 credit hour thesis continuance course are not eligible to receive award
  • Fellowship may be used toward a study abroad program through one of Columbia's student exchange programs, excluding Summer sessions. Please note: Recipients who enroll in an independent study abroad program will forfeit their fellowship during the semester spent abroad
  • The rules and regulations governing other sources of financial aid (federal, state, institutional and other grants, gifts, or loans) will apply

IMPORTANT DATES

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