Funding Opportunities for Current Graduate Students

Quarter 4 is now closed and no longer accepting applications. Funds are no longer available for travel prior to June 30, 2020. Applications for Quarter 1 will open late Spring 2020.

Overview

CCAS Dean's Graduate Conference Travel Grants provide reimbursement of certain expenses for students who must travel to present, exhibit, or perform at competitive academic conferences.

• Quarter 1: travel ending between July 1 - Sept. 30
• Quarter 2: travel ending between Oct. 1 - Dec. 31
• Quarter 3: travel ending between Jan. 1 - March 31
• Quarter 4: travel ending between April 1 - June 30

Deadlines

We must receive your completed online application before 12 pm Eastern Time on the day of the application deadline.

• Quarter 4 Application Deadline: February 21, 2020. Applicants will be notified by email approximately three weeks after the deadline.

Note: If you miss an application deadline, you may apply to the next quarter. However, your travel must take place within the quarter you apply to. There are no exceptions to travel dates.

Eligibility and Criteria

• Applicants must exhaust the scholarly travel funds available to them through their graduate program before applying for a CCAS Dean's Conference Travel Grant. These grants are intended to cover conference expenses that exceed available departmental travel funds or to fund travel to a second conference in a single academic year. 
• Applicants must be in good academic standing in their  degree program at the time of application and throughout the travel period. Students enrolled exclusively in graduate certificate programs are ineligible.
• Applicants must travel for the purpose of presenting their own, original work, not that of a faculty member or anyone else. Applicants must be lead authors, principal investigators, artists or similar.
• Preference is given to applicants who are presenting academic papers and who have never received a travel grant (for research or conference travel).
• Grants will be awarded by CCAS on a competitive basis.

Many eligible applicants will not receive grants.

Restrictions

• Grants may be used only for travel, lodging and meals, not for other expenses (e.g., equipment, membership fees, etc.).
• The conference must be located outside the Capital Beltway.
• No student may receive more than one travel grant (for research or conference travel) per fiscal year (July 1–June 30).
• No student may receive more than three CCAS travel grants (for research or conference travel) while studying in CCAS.
• Grants are not awarded retroactively (i.e., for travel already begun or completed).
• Travel for Quarter 4 must end no earlier than April 1, 2020 and no later than June 30, 2020.
• Travel for Quarter 3 must end no earlier than Jan. 1, 2020 and no later than Mar.31, 2020
• No expenses will be reimbursed if travel ends when the student is no longer pursuing a CCAS degree, either because the final CCAS degree has been awarded or because of termination or withdrawal.
• An expense is eligible for reimbursement only if it is incurred for travel that actually takes place within the travel period specified in the student’s application.

Maximum Grant

• Up to $800 for travel within the continental U.S.
• Up to $1,100 for travel to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe
• Up to $1,400 for travel to Africa, Asia, South America and Australia

Application & Selection Process

1. Identify a faculty sponsor who is prepared to speak in detail in support of the application (ordinarily a faculty advisor, program director, or department chair). The dean may contact the sponsor for more information about the application.
2. Complete the online application including faculty sponsor’s contact information, the conference name and contact information.
3. Applications are reviewed after the application deadline.
4. The Office of Graduate Studies will inform applicants of a decision by email approximately three weeks after the deadline.

If you do not receive a grant, you may reapply for another quarter. Students who have not previously received a conference travel grant have first priority.

Award Process

1. Grantees are responsible for working with department/program staff to charge travel to the department/program or, if the grantee makes purchases with personal funds, to receive initial reimbursement from the department/program. The department/program may prefer to book travel for the grantee. CCAS will not directly reimburse grantees.
2. Before June 15, 2020, departments/programs should forward the notification email to the CCAS Finance Office at [email protected] to request reimbursement, along with the final amount requested and confirmation that these expenses were actually incurred and have not been reimbursed from other sources. For expenses incurred on or after June 15, 2020, but before July 1, 2020, reimbursement requests should be submitted as soon as possible, but no later than June 30, 2020. CCAS cannot honor requests for reimbursement submitted after these deadlines.

If you have additional questions that are not addressed, please call the Columbian College Office of Graduate Studies at 202-994-6210 or send an email to [email protected].

The CCAS Dean’s Graduate Instructorship (DGI) offers exceptional Ph.D. candidates the unique experience of designing and teaching their own undergraduate courses while obtaining financial support for their dissertation research. Awardees design and teach undergraduate seminars in their areas of expertise, enabling undergraduates to engage intellectually with the cutting-edge research programs of our advanced Ph.D. candidates.

Awardees teach a one-semester undergraduate course and receive the standard Graduate Assistant salary and stipend in their respective departments (typically $12,500). In addition, the DGI covers required tuition for the semester (up to 9 credits). Fellows whose tuition is covered by external funds receive, instead, a research fund of $500. Up to three (3) fellowships are awarded each semester.

DGI courses are subject to the course enrollment requirements of all CCAS undergraduate courses, which means that they must enroll a minimum of 10 students to run in any particular semester. Applicants should work with their departments to develop a plan for their proposed course to ensure that it will enroll the required number of students. DGI courses that are under-enrolled 30 days before the start of the semester may be canceled.

Eligibility and Conditions

1. Applicants must be CCAS Ph.D. candidates in residence for their teaching semester;
2. Applicants must be in candidacy (“ABD”) which, in most programs, entails all required coursework completed, qualifying examination passed, and dissertation proposal approved;
3. The DGI course must be taught in the academic year for which it is approved; the award may not be deferred to a subsequent academic year;
4. No student may receive more than one DGI while enrolled at GW;
5. Awardees must not have exceeded the eight-year limitation on time to degree in the teaching semester, even if CCAS has granted an extension;
6. Receipt of the DGI increases by one the total number of funded semesters that the awardee should expect to receive as a Ph.D. student at GW, either from internal or external sources;
7. Before preparing an application, candidates should consult their director of graduate studies, director of undergraduate studies, and department chair to assess the interest of the department in the proposed course and to ensure that it meets departmental teaching needs.

Application

Applications are reviewed by the Office of Graduate Studies. Please access the online application here. Candidates must upload to the online application the following materials in a single pdf file:

1. Curriculum vitae
2. Unofficial GW transcript
3. Syllabus based on the template recommended by the Office of the Provost.

Students must also request a letter of support from the chair of their department, which should be submitted by the chair at this link. 

• The department chair’s letter should explain (in one page) how the applicant’s proposed course will fit into the department’s curriculum (will the course fulfill any major/minor requirements or electives, WID or G-PAC requirements, etc.?) and how the department will publicize the course to its majors/minors and other potentially interested students. The department chair should note the course number under which the proposed course will run, for which semester (Fall 2020 or Spring 2021) the course is more appropriate, and the likelihood that the course will attract the required enrollment of 10 or more students.

  The chair’s letter should outline any alternative teaching assignment that might be available for the DGI recipient, if the course must be canceled for failing to meet the enrollment threshold. The letter should also include, as appropriate, a specific departmental plan for covering any services the applicant would otherwise provide to the department as a Graduate Assistant during the semester in question, including any financial support that might be required from CCAS to replace the awardee. (No applicant will be placed at a competitive disadvantage for the DGI because their department requires financial support for  a replacement.)

Candidates are responsible for reminding the Chair to submit a recommendation by the application deadline.

Direct questions to Katherine Conaty, Associate Director of Graduate Studies and Fellowships, at [email protected].

Important Dates

Thursday, March 12, 2020 - All applications for the 2020-2021 academic year (Fall 2020 and Spring 2021) are due by 5:00 p.m., on Thursday, March 12, 2020. Please note at the top of your required course syllabus the semester you would prefer to offer your DGI course.

CCAS invites eligible PhD candidates to apply for the Dean’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship (DCF) for academic year 2020-2021. Each DCF includes a stipend equivalent to the normal GA salary and stipend in the recipient’s respective department for one or two semesters (typically $12,500 per semester), as well as an award of required candidacy tuition for the period of the fellowship. Fellows whose tuition is covered by external funds receive instead a research fund of $500. Three to six fellowships will be awarded for AY 2020-21.

Deadline

March 30, 2020: All applications for the 2020-2021 academic year are due by 5:00 p.m., on Monday, March 30, 2020.

Eligibility and Conditions

The Dean’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship is intended to facilitate the completion of the PhD. Therefore, applicants must:

• Be advanced to Ph.D. candidacy, which, in most programs, entails the successful completion of all required coursework and of all qualifying, comprehensive, and/or general examination(s), as well as approval of the dissertation proposal;
• Be in residence for their fellowship semester(s);
• Have no more than one full year of dissertation work remaining at the start of the fellowship year, as certified by their dissertation advisor;
• Have exhausted or be in their final year of guaranteed graduate funding from their department, CCAS, or the University, at the start of the fellowship year; and
• Not have exceeded the eight-year limitation on time to degree in the fellowship semester, even if CCAS has granted an extension.

Receipt of the DCF increases by one the total number of funded semesters that the awardee should expect to receive as a PhD student at GW, either from internal or external sources. Awardees may receive department, CCAS, and/or University funding for no more than one additional semester after receiving the DCF.

Application

Applicants must complete the online application form. Email and paper submissions are not accepted. The form requires applicants to upload the following documents as a single pdf file (in the following order):

1. Curriculum vitae (up to 3 pages)
2. Unofficial GW transcript
3. A 250-word dissertation abstract, written for a general, educated audience (not just for experts in the field)
4. An outline of all dissertation work currently completed, and a timeline for the completion of all remaining parts of the dissertation (including drafts and revisions of chapters, introduction, conclusion, etc.) and the dissertation defense (up to 2 pages)
5. One completed chapter or excerpt from the dissertation, which must be in English and be neither the introduction, nor the conclusion, nor the literature review (up to 30 pages)
6. Short bibliography (up to 2 pages)
7. No more than three additional pages of images, musical scores, or other supporting, non-text materials (optional)

Letter of Support:

Applicants must also request a letter of support from their dissertation director. Each letter must:

• Confirm the applicant’s timeline and likelihood of dissertation completion within the 2020-2021 academic year;
• Provide a brief description of the dissertation completion expectations for the applicant’s field;
• Provide a statement explaining where the applicant’s work stands relative to these expectations (Does the applicant have significant work remaining to complete the dissertation, or is the applicant engaged in the final write-up and/or revision stages?)
• Address the originality of the applicant’s work. (What is new about it? What does it add to the discipline?)

To request a confidential letter of support, the applicant must share this recommendation link with the recommender. By sharing the link, applicants agree to waive their rights to access and examine the letter, now or at any time in the future. Applicants who wish to request a non-confidential letter should contact the Office of Graduate Studies for instructions. Letters emailed or delivered to CCAS will not be considered.

Applicants should remind recommenders to notify them after submitting letters. CCAS cannot respond to inquiries about missing letters. Direct questions to Katherine Conaty, Associate Director of Graduate Admissions and Fellowships, at [email protected]. 

Review criteria include the originality and potential impact of the proposed work, the reasonableness of the timeline, and the clarity of writing in the lay abstract.

Student recipients will receive funding that can be used to help reimburse payment for professional development opportunities that might be considered cost-prohibitive. For example:

• registration fees for professional conferences in a student’s academic area of interest (not for study abroad fees, academic credit opportunities)
• costs associated with specialized training opportunities, portfolio development, research (i.e. survey tool, not used for participant survey compensation), etc.
• business professional attire up to $250 reimbursed

Learn More & Apply for the Fund

The purpose of the Lambert Graduate Stipend in Arts & Sciences is to provide a stipend to a graduate student at risk of leaving The George Washington University due to financial hardship. 

One stipend award of $6,000 will be available for the 2019-2020 academic year. The stipend is paid monthly over the award period and may be used for any cost to support your studies. 

Applicants must:

• be in good academic standing
• have not exceeded the Columbian College time to degree limit for your academic program
• plan to complete their graduate degree no earlier than the Fall 2019 term
• Submit the online application by the posted deadline. 

Applications for the 2019-2020 academic year have closed.

The purpose of the Jean Stoner Tippett Endowment for Graduate Scholarships is to provide tuition support for graduate students in Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. 

Three tuition awards of $8,000 each will be available in the 2019-2020 academic year. 

Applicants must:

• be in good academic standing
• have not exceeded the Columbian College time to degree limit for your academic program
• have no outstanding grades of "I" (Incomplete)
• plan to complete their graduate degree no earlier than the Fall 2019 term
• Have at least 5 credit hours remaining to complete in the 2019-2020 academic year
• Submit the online application by the posted deadline. 

Applications for the 2019-2020 academic year have closed.

The GW Career Services Council established the Knowledge in Action Career Internship Fund (KACIF) to encourage GW students to pursue high-quality, necessarily unpaid internships that foster their career exploration and enhance their academic program, while reducing the financial challenges associated with unpaid internships. Review eligibility requirements and information about the award and the application process below to help you prepare to apply for the award.