Financial Support and Teaching

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

Graduate students who enter the program with a B.A. and progress normally are guaranteed 5 years of full funding (tuition and stipend), while students entering with an M.A. receive one year's course credit and 4 years of full funding. Students are eligible to apply for additional funding, as outlined briefly below and more fully in the English Department Graduate Program Handbook.

In their second year, students entering with a B.A. receive funding through the teaching preparation and professional development component of our program, which includes being assigned to a literature course to be mentored by a fulltime faculty member, attending the Graduate Proseminar in the Fall term, and being introduced to the First-Year Writing Program (FYWP) through classroom observation and the first of two teacher training workshops in the Spring term. Students entering with an M.A. degree typically bypass the mentoring assignment, though they attend the Proseminar, observe FYW classes, and attend the training workshops that begin in their first year before beginning to teach in the FYWP in their second year.

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

Following their years of funding by teaching stipend, students are eligible to apply for a one-semester dissertation fellowship. Several other short term fellowships for which students may apply are available through the GSAS Dean's Office and Tisch Library. Advanced students may also apply for a fellowship at Tufts' Humanities Center and/or to teach with a fulltime faculty member through the GSAS GIFT program. Please see the GSAS Website for more details about these and other research funding opportunities.