Thanks to a generous gift, the First Amendment Center has officially launched The Murry and Polly Bowden Fellows Program, with the goal of supporting academics from every viewpoint develop their scholarship and thinking related to all the freedoms of the First Amendment. Each year, fellows will include one Scholar in Residence here at UT, a number of Non-Resident Fellows from universities across the country, and approximately twenty Student Fellows, graduate and undergraduate, from many departments across the University of Texas at Austin.

Scholar in Residence: receives funding to cover half their salary at their home institution and spends a substantial amount of time at Texas, with an office and resources to work on their research.

Non-Resident Fellows: each receives an honorarium of $4,000 and will come to the University of Texas once during the academic year to present their work to faculty and students as a keynote in the Bowden Fellows Speaker Series hosted at Texas Law.

The Resident and Non-Resident fellows will also participate in a multiday colloquium at the end of the academic year where they will workshop and strengthen their current writing projects.

Student Fellows: each receives an honorarium of $500 and will participate in the Bowden Fellows Speaker Series, allowing these fellows to network with influential people in the First Amendment space to build relationships that will benefit them throughout their career. Student fellows are comprised of University of Texas students from every department on campus.

Interested in becoming a 2026-2027 Resident, Non-resident, or Student Bowden Fellow?

Email inquiries to FirstAmendmentCenter@law.utexas.edu.