Graduate Funding in the English Department

The Department offers financial support for graduate students through fellowships and assistantships awarded competitively. Each type of award is described briefly below, and all qualify the recipient for in-state tuition.

• Graderships
• Research Assistantships
• Teaching Assistantships
• Fellowships
• Travel

• Ph.D. in English
• NonFiction Writing Pgm. (MFA)
• M.A. Literary Studies

• Admissions
• Funding
• Courses 
• Current Grad Students
• Graduate News

For admission to the MFA in poetry or fiction, write to:
The Writers' Workshop
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242-1408

See also:

• Graduate and Professional Admissions
• Graduate Assistantship Bulletin Board
• Graduate College Sources of Financial Support

Graderships

Ten hours of work per week on average, grading papers and exams for one of a number of large undergraduate courses. Your Graduate Award Application and the Departmental Financial Aid Application should be submitted along with your application for admission. Applications for financial awards are considered only after a candidate has been admitted to a degree program.

Research Assistantships

Ten hours of work per week on average. The work varies, but includes assisting faculty with research and other scholarly projects. Your Graduate Award Application and Departmental Financial Aid Application should be submitted along with your application for admission. Applications for financial awards are considered only after a candidate has been admitted to a degree program.

Teaching Assistantships

Two to three sections per academic year. Teaching Assistants generally serve as instructors in their own courses in the Rhetoric Department or in the General Education in Literature Program. Your Graduate Award Application and Departmental Financial Aid Application should be submitted along with your application for admission. Applications for financial awards are considered only after a candidate has been admitted to a degree program. The Iowa Board of Regents mandates that all non-native speakers of English pass an oral fluency test before they are eligible to teach.

Fellowships

Click to see fellowhips for incoming and currently enrolled graduate students.

Department Travel Funds for Graduate Students

The English Department offers support to graduate students for conference and research travel.

Travel to conferences and to archives

The Department will fund travel to conferences or archives in the amount of $300 per trip with a per student cap of three trips for PhD students, one trip for MA students, and three trips for MFA students. (For students working simultaneously on MFA and PhD degrees, the maximum number of trips shall be three.)

Eligibility and application procedures:

• PhD students are eligible for conference travel support after they have been admitted to PhD candidacy and for travel to archives after they have held a successful prospectus meeting. MA students are eligible for conference travel support in their second year of graduate study.
   
  In order to make a travel funds request, PhD and MA students should submit to the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) the name and date of the conference, the title of their paper or a brief description of the proposed research trip as well as the number of conference trips already supported from departmental travel funds. This is best done via email. The DGS will send a response to the student and forward the request to the graduate program assistant who will print a travel support letter for the DGS to sign. The program assistant will also introduce students to the university's on-line travel money tracking procedure.
• NWP students are eligible for travel support to conduct research, participate in the Overseas Writing Workshop (or another approved workshop), attend AWP, and/or present a paper at a conference. In order to apply for travel support NWP students should first submit a one-page travel funds request outlining the nature of the proposed trip to the Director of the NWP for approval. The Director of the NWP will then forward the request to the Director of Graduate Studies for final approval, and the program assistant will print a travel support letter for the Director of Graduate Studies to sign.

When the student receives the letter from the DGS approving the reimbursement along with the funding number (MFK), s/he should go on ISIS, Employee Self Service >> FO Application >> ProTrav >>Travel >> Create New Trip. The trip will then be approved by the department. After the trip has been taken, the student should return to Pro Trav to Create Voucher, in which s/he lists the expenses and presents original receipts to accompany the voucher to the graduate program assistant. The graduate program assistant will forward the voucher to the travel department.

Since travel support funds may, in any given year, be limited, students are encouraged to also seek travel support from other sources within the University, particularly the Graduate Student Senate and International Programs. See these programs’ respective websites http://www.uiowa.edu/~gss/travel/ and
http://intl-programs.uiowa.edu/ipresearch/graduate/

Travel for job interviews

For PhD students who have job interviews at the MLA conference and for MFA students who have interviews at events approved by the director of the NWP, the Department will offer up to two awards of $300 to help cover travel expenses. This is in addition to the three supported trips to conferences, archives, or workshops described above.

Grandfather clause

This policy goes into effect in summer 2006. For those students who have received travel support prior to that date, the following grandfather clause applies:

Students who have taken 1-2 supported trips as of spring 2006 are eligible for two additional trips at $300 per trip.

Students who have taken 3-4 supported trips as of spring 2006 are eligible for one additional trip at $300.

Students who have received support for one interview trip as of spring 2006 are eligible for a second interview trip in academic year 2006-07.