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Ph.D. Funding and Awards

An initial funding offer is provided to accepted students at the time of admission.

Funding offers typically combine one or more years of departmental fellowship with graduate teaching assistantships for the remaining time. Students are typically guaranteed funding for five years. Graduate teaching assistantships often continue to be available for students who have passed their years of guaranteed funding, though this additional support is subject to departmental need and available funds. Funding is contingent on satisfactory progress towards the degree and completion of benchmarks.

 

 

Graduate Student Funding and Awards

Departmental Fellowships

Departmental fellowships provide a stipend for students to take classes and work on their research full-time. These fellowships are available on a competitive basis, with priority given to funding first year students. Advanced students can apply for fellowship funding through the UMD Graduate School as well as for external fellowship support.

Graduate Teaching Assistantships

Graduate teaching assistantships include a stipend and require 20 hours per week of work in the department during the fall and spring semesters. This usually amounts to an assignment for 3 sections total, either as a teaching assistant for a larger class taught by a faculty member or as instructor of record. Students typically serve as TAs while training in feminist pedagogy in their first year of teaching and have the opportunity to teach their own classes thereafter. First year students are not eligible for a teaching position. Graduate teaching assistantships typically continue to be available for students who have passed their years of guaranteed funding, though this additional support is subject to departmental need, available funds and the student’s satisfactory progress.

Students may apply for graduate assistantships in other departments on campus if they do not receive departmental funding or they have completed the terms of their funding offer.

Graduate research assistantships are also an option when available, but are less common within the department. University fellowships are available to fund additional fellowship time.

Research and Travel Funds

Graduate students in good standing are eligible for $500 annually to be used for research, travel and conferences. This must be used in the year it is available and cannot be rolled over. The amount of funds available is determined by the departmental budget and may be subject to change.

Scholarships and Awards

The Virginia W. Beauchamp Scholarship

Beauchamp was the first coordinator of the women’s studies program at the University of Maryland. 

The Virginia W. Beauchamp Scholarship will provide need-based scholarships for graduate students in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, College Park. This endowed fund is named in honor of University of Maryland Professor Emerita Virginia W. Beauchamp.

Beauchamp has been recognized as the founding mother of the University of Maryland’s Department of Women’s Studies (1975). In recognition of an extraordinary life fully lived, Beauchamp was inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame in 2003. As her Maryland Hall of Fame citation notes: She was “a pioneer, risk taker, intellectual with a vision and has given women the power to believe they have a history to be proud of and a future to believe in.” Beauchamp was also a longtime member of the University’s Campus Club, which funds and awards this scholarship. The club’s purpose is to unite women of the university community for their promotion of their common interests in intellectual, social and civil affairs.

Beauchamp passed away in February 2019. To learn more and to see her obituary please click here. To contribute to this scholarship please click here.

The Evi Beck Research Award

The department may offer an Evi Beck Research Award. This support will vary from year to year based on the availability of funds. This award funds graduate students’ efforts as they prepare for the dissertation prospectus. The award is named in honor of Evelyn Torton Beck, professor emerita of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Among other things, it has been used to help graduate students’ travel to archives, obtain supplies and with other research needs.

Bolles/Rosenfelt Dissertation Completion Award

The department may offer a Bolles/Rosenfelt Women’s Studies Dissertation Completion Award. This support will vary from year to year based on the availability of funds. The award will be administered over the summer. The Women’s Studies Dissertation Completion Award is geared toward advanced doctoral candidates who are in the final stages of writing their dissertations. The support is intended to free students from the need to seek other work during the summer and we ask that recipients not accept any assistantships during this period. The selection process will take into consideration the applicant’s ability to clearly delineate the research project’s focus, its contribution and significance to the field or research area and the likelihood of completion within the academic year