Travel and Research Support
The department offers funding of up to $800 to graduate students in the PhD program for travel to professional conferences. MA and MFA students are eligible for up to $350 for travel to professional conferences. You may use this amount to defray registration fees and, outside the Washington metro area, for the costs for travel, lodging, and food. To receive departmental travel support, you must be delivering a paper at a regional, national, or international conference. MA and MFA students are eligible for the travel allowance one time during their master’s work; PhD students are eligible for the travel allowance two times during their PhD work. Doctoral students making good progress may apply for a third year of funding to subsidize travel to a major national conference by submitting a request to the Director of Graduate Studies and the Associate Chair; funding for a third trip is not guaranteed and is strictly contingent on appropriate approvals. Please note that only one departmentally supported trip is permitted to a graduate-student conference. Students must inform the Department and complete the appropriate forms before attending the conferences for which they wish to receive travel support. These forms can be obtained through the Business Office in the MEO. The deadline to submit these forms will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Departmental funding can be supplemented by applying for a Jacob K. Goldhaber Travel Grant offered by the Graduate School. The Department will match, separate and apart from the regular departmental funding described above, equally the amounts awarded by the Goldhaber. This grant is usually given preference to someone in his or her final stage of graduate work. The Goldhaber application form should be submitted to the Associate Chair's office for approval. Additional travel support may also be available through the College of Arts and Humanities.
As students who are part of the Washington, DC Area Consortium of colleges and universities, our graduate students are also eligible for a Cosmos Club Grant in support of Young Scholars (Graduate Students). Up to $3000. The purpose of the program is to provide small grants to meet specific research needs not covered by other supporting funds. Examples of appropriate needs are small items of equipment (ordinarily expendable), special supplies, travel to research facilities or to attend relevant meetings, etc. Specifically excluded are general financial support, tuition, living expenses (except in connection with supported travel), and expenses that should have been foreseen and provided for in planning the degree program. Funds for work already done, or scheduled to be done so soon that our support could not be directly applied to it, should not be requested. Please visit http://www.cosmosclubfoundation.org/scholars/ for more information.
The QCB Travel Award
The QCB Research and Travel Grant is awarded on a competitive basis to graduate students in English and CMLT. These grants are awarded to support student research requiring travel to archives, special collections, and other unique resources in connection with the PhD dissertation and, in rare cases, MA thesis research. In 1996, the department set aside travel funds for this purpose. An anonymous donor, wishing to enhance our ability to support graduate student travel for research, made a generous gift that increased available funds. The donor wishes the gift funds to be devoted specifically to supporting archival research, with some preference toward British literary studies.
Applications should be no more than three pages in length and should include: 1) concise description of the project for which the research is being undertaken; 2) a detailed description of the research to be undertaken, including, for example, the library or other institution to be visited, the particular archive or collection to be consulted, the reason why the research must be done on site, the amount of time anticipated for the research, and so on; and, 3) a detailed budget. In addition, the applicant should have his/her dissertation director (or, in rare cases, thesis advisor) forward a letter of endorsement to the Graduate office.
Job Market Travel Support
In addition to the funds for travel to conferences, PhD students on the academic job market who have interviews at the MLA convention may apply for up to $1,200 in expenses to travel to the convention. This funding is contingent on the following conditions: 1) A student must have one or more MLA interviews for a tenure-track position; 2) A student is eligible for funding for a total of two trips, which could be taken before the dissertation defense or up to 24 months after completion of the PhD; 3) Any student who already has a full-time, salaried position of any sort is ineligible.
