Fellowships & Assistantships

A sizable number of fellowships and assistantships are available for graduate students in the Department of Political Science. The number of these awarded directly by the department varies somewhat from year to year, but recently funds have been sufficient to provide support for the vast majority of graduate students. These departmental awards require service duties that range from ten to fifteen hours per week during the nine-month academic year. Such duties may be teaching in an elementary course, conducting recitation sections, or assisting a faculty member in research/teaching. After the first year, graduate students must demonstrate the ability to teach in English in order to be eligible for further financial support.

Graduate students in political science are eligible for a variety of competitive, university-wide fellowships and scholarships. These fellowships and scholarships normally do not require a service commitment. Some special and minority fellowships are also awarded by the Graduate School. For example, the Fulbright program for students is designed to give master's and doctoral candidates opportunities for personal development and international experience. Most grantees plan their own programs. For more information on the Fulbright Program, please contact Tessa Dean and consult the Fulbright web site. Foreign Language study grants are also available, both for summer support and yearlong fellowships designed to support advanced dissertation research in a foreign language.

There is also the Q. Whitfield Ayres Graduate Fellowship for the Study of Liberty and Markets in the Department of Politcal Science. This fellowship is provided to an exceptionally talented doctoral student in the Department whose research and teaching interests focus on understanding the role of libery and markets in contemporary America.