Funding Opportunities

The English department partners with several centers and units to provide competitive graduate assistantship opportunities to our graduate students. Graduate assistantships are an opportunity to gain professional experience and develop skills outside of teaching. Students receive the same pay and benefits as teaching assistants. Calls for applications are circulated each spring semester. If you would like more information about a particular assistantship, please reach out to the director of graduate studies or program coordinator to be connected with supervising faculty and past assistants. The following organizations offer assistantships each year: ​

• Center for Material Culture Studies
• Assistant Director for University Writing Center
• UD Press Scholarly Publishing Assistant
• Winterthur Museum & Library
• Mark Samuels Lasner Collection
• Special Collections

Hourly Positions

UD English also supports hourly paid internships and research assistantships at $20.00 to $30.00 per hour for positions that require less than 5 hours of work per week.​

The university offers several competitive teaching assistantships each year. Although all of our doctoral students are funded on teaching assistantships as instructors for English courses, the opportunity to assist faculty in a complementary discipline helps students gain valuable interdisciplinary experience. IGTAs assist a faculty member in another department with their undergraduate courses. Participating departments may include but are not limited to Women & Gender Studies, Political Science, Philosophy and Anthropology. IGTA's receive the same stipend and benefits as​ English teaching assistants. Calls for applications go out each spring semester. ​

The department holds between 2 competitions for travel funding during the academic year, one in Fall and one in Spring. We support graduate student travel to conferences and to research sites such as archives.

Priority is given to national conferences at which the student will be presenting original work. In applying for travel funding, students should speak to the prestige of the conference and the role it will play in their professional development.

Students interested in applying for a travel grant should review the instructions given in the Graduate Handbook and look for the DGS's email announcement in Fall or Spring.

Graduate College Awards

Funds for travel

• Graduate Travel Award - up to $1500 to support travel and conference paper presentation
• Summer D​​oc​toral Fellowship - These awards of up to $7,333 provide stipend support for doctoral students who do not have summer appointments or who do not have appointments at the campus minimum stipend rate.​
  
• Collection Based Research​ Grant - up to $300 for short term research travel
  
• Unidel Louise Roselle Collectio​ns-Based Research Travel Award - up to $4500 to support students’ research travel to libraries, archives and museums worldwide
  

Recruitment Scholarships and Fellowships

• Graduate Scholars Award - a 1-2 year 12 month award for new or current students
  
• Doctoral Fellowship for Excellence​ - a year-long writing fellowship for students working on the doctoral project
  

Center for Material Culture Studies (CMCS) Awards:

• Collections Based or Seminar Workshop Grant—Up to $750 per awardee is available through the National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant. MA and PhD students planning to enroll in a seminar or workshop with significant material culture element are eligible to apply. Deadline: March 15.
• Graduate Research Presentation Fund—Up to $1,000 each for up to 8 students to support graduate students presenting original research at a public venue. Application Deadline: October 15 and March 15.
• Graduate Research Publication Subvention Fund —Up to $500 each for up to 4 students to support graduate student publications Application Deadline: October 15 and March 15
• Friends of Rockwood Fund—Up to $1,500 to support a graduate student researching Victorian-era material culture. Application Deadline: March 15.
• Finkel Fund in Support of Cultural Internships—Up to $3,000 to support undergraduate or graduate students accepted for a material culture related internship in Summer 2019. Application Deadline: March 15.
• Graduate Research Travel Fund—Up to $1,500 each for up to 6 graduate students pursuing research or fieldwork in material culture studies. Application Deadline: October 15 and March 15.