PhD student support
We offer funding packages to a maximum of 3-4 PhD students per year. A typical funding package as a Graduate Assistant includes a complete tuition waiver for 9 credits (usually 3 courses) per semester (fall and spring), health insurance, and a stipend sufficient to live a graduate student lifestyle in the East Lansing area. Funding is contingent from year to year on satisfactory academic progress in the doctoral program. In the final semester, most PhD students are supported by a Dissertation Completion Fellowship (see below for more on this and other funding opportunities), which releases them from assistantship responsibilities so that they can focus on writing.
Graduate assistantships
As part of the support for the PhD, students serve as Graduate Assistants in research, teaching or administrative roles for 20 hours/week during the fall and spring semesters.
Research assistants are usually assigned to a specific Linguistics faculty member or to one of our labs. Activities will vary depending on the assignment, but typically include bibliography creation, data management, mentoring undergraduate researchers, attending meetings, running experiments etc.
Teaching assistants teach courses in linguistics, integrated arts and humanities, or in particular languages. See the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures’s resources for graduate students page for more information about regularly-offered teaching opportunities. Full training is provided.
Administrative assistants might work in a variety of roles. In the past these have included administrative support for the department’s website, working with the department’s academic adviser to undergraduate students, assisting a faculty member who is a journal editor, and helping to run language programs for the wider community. These assistantships can be of particular benefit to students interested in exploring careers in academic administration, non-profit work, and industry.
For more specifics related to the Graduate Assistantship stipend and benefits, see the most recent Graduate Employee Union (GEU) contract. It is worth noting that the exact stipend depends on the number of hours per week the Graduate Assistantship is for and the level of the Graduate Assistantship. As mentioned above, an incoming student will have a 20 hours/week appointment; this constitutes a 1/2 time appointment as per the GEU contract. Furthermore, if the student has a prior Master’s degree, they will be assigned to Level 2 (the same can be achieved after 2 semesters of graduate work at MSU); otherwise, the student will be assigned to a Level 1.
How graduate assistantships are assigned
New students
Applicants to the program who are longlisted for an interview will be contacted with a request for additional information. They will be asked to provide details of their prior teaching experience (if any), research and technical skills, and proficiency in any language sufficient for teaching it at a basic level. This information is used to match successful applicants with available assistantships. In practice, we strive to offer all new PhD students a research assistantship in the first year, so that they can familiarize themselves with the Linguistics program courses, labs, and community before taking on the responsibilities associated with teaching.
Continuing students
PhD students in their second year or beyond provide information about their experiences and preferences to their advisor and to the Linguistics graduate program director. We take those preferences into account wherever possible when assigning students to assistantships. In particular, we try to scaffold teaching assignments in such a way that students move from more ‘background’ roles (e.g. as graders, or as instructors for recitation sections) to more ‘foreground’ roles as sole instructors of their own courses.
MA student support
We do not offer funding to MA students. However, they are able to apply for GAships in sister programs or departments, but these must be applied for on an ad hoc basis by the student and are not guaranteed. The MSU Graduate School maintains a list of internal funding, some of which is available to MA students, and a list of external funding sources to explore.
Joshi Scholarships
Two awards will be made annually to eligible current or prospective Linguistics graduate students: A Graduate Recruitment Award and a Research Enhancement Award.
The Graduate Recruitment Award is intended to attract an excellent graduate applicant (either MA or PhD) to the Linguistics program to study a topic in South Asian linguistics. An amount of $10,000/year will be awarded as a fellowship every Spring for two years for PhD students and up to two years for MA students, starting with the student’s first academic year.
The Joshi Research Enhancement Award is to encourage current Linguistics graduate students to incorporate the linguistic analysis of a South Asian language into their research program. The award amount is $3000.
Other sources of support and funding for travel, research, and conferences
Students in our program are also eligible to apply for, and are regularly awarded, Summer Support Fellowships, Dissertation Completion Fellowships, funding for research abroad. See here for details.
Most PhD students can assume that they will receive at least one Summer Support Fellowship in the course of their time here, and often two or more. MA students are less frequently funded but no less eligible for most summer fellowships. There are also opportunities to teach Linguistics and other courses during the summer months.
Generous funding for travel to conferences (and research sites) is available, usually permitting students to attend one or two conferences per academic year to present their work. We also have funds for paying research participants and buying equipment.