Graduate Program

Financial Support and Teaching

Every entering student receives a full fellowship during the first year in the program.

Graduate students who enter the program with a B.A. and proceed normally are guaranteed 5 ½ years of full funding (tuition and stipend), while students entering with an M.A. receive one year's course credit and 4 ½ years of funding.

In their second year, students entering with a B.A. receive funding and mentoring through our TA program, which enables them to assist a fulltime faculty member in a literature course and to be introduced to the First-Year Writing Program (FYWP). Students entering with an M.A. degree typically bypass the TA program and begin teaching in the FYWP in their second year.

For the next three years, students teach in the FYWP. As instructors, graduate students have full responsibility for course design and implementation, enabling them to gain experience that is extremely valuable on the job market. They teach one expository writing course a semester.

Following their years of teaching, students receive a semester-length dissertation fellowship. Students who move quickly through the program may choose to replace both the final year of teaching and the semester-length fellowship with a full year's dissertation fellowship.

The university also awards several Provost's Fellowships to incoming students, as well as a few Dean's Humanities Fellowships designed to increase diversity in our field. Advanced students may also apply to team-teach with a fulltime faculty member through the GIFT program or to receive a fellowship at our Humanities Center.