Financial Support for Ph.D. in Theology

The Department of Theology is pleased to offer the following financial aid package to admitted PhD students:

Students with assistantships receive full tuition remission and a stipend for five years of PhD work.

 
  1. In their first two years of funding, the students spend:
    • 14-18 hours per week assisting one or two faculty members in research and/or teaching assistance in their first two semesters.
    • 14-18 hours per week with a faculty teaching mentor, sometimes in addition to, sometimes in lieu of, other duties to develop a syllabus with the mentor for their fifth semester's work in their third and fourth semesters.
  2. In their third, fourth and fifth years of funding, unless they receive a Research Fellowship (RF), Senior Teaching Fellowship (STF), or Alumni Dissertation Fellowship (ADF), the students:
    • teach one section each semester, normally a regular course with 35 students, either "Faith and Critical Reasoning" or one of the "Sacred Texts and Traditions" courses
    • aid a designated faculty member with research assistance or aid the office with administrative assistance for three hours per week.
  3. In their third, fourth, and fifth years of funding, students also have the option of applying for one of several university-wide fellowships available to graduate students through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS):
    • GSAS Research Fellowship - The RF is, ideally, the first of the substantial financial awards an excellent doctoral student would receive. The fellowship provides support for students who wish to work closely with faculty mentors to develop their own dissertation research projects or to learn methods or procedures that they will use on their own dissertation research. The grant is awarded on a competitive basis and will reward students who have presented papers at conferences, published articles or book reviews, and submitted proposals for external fellowships. View more details on this award.
    • Senior Teaching Fellowship - The STF is, ideally, the second of these awards a doctoral candidate might receive. The award is designed for the student who has already completed a teaching fellowship within his or her department and has demonstrated effective teaching skills. The student’s application must include evidence of this effectiveness as provided by teaching evaluations (SEEQ) and a letter from his or her teaching mentor. View more details on this award.
    • Alumni Dissertation Fellowship - The ADF is, ideally, the third and final award an excellent doctoral candidate would receive. The student may apply for this award only after the department has accepted the proposal and the dean has approved the dissertation title and committee. The fellowship allows the student to devote full-time work to the dissertation and is meant to enable him or her to complete it during the fellowship year. View more details on this award.
  4. Additionally, graduate students can apply for a Summer Fellowship through GSAS:
    • GSAS Summer Fellowship - The Summer Fellowship provides support to students who wish to devote the summer to work on proposals to apply for prestigious fellowships. In disseminating these awards, the highest priority will be given to summer projects designed to prepare a student to apply for prestigious fellowships, and to improve a student’s professional credentials (beyond the normal expectation of the program). Recipients of the fellowship are required to present papers at the annual GSAS Student Research Weekend. Any doctoral or masters student may apply, regardless of whether he or she has been nominated for one of the larger awards. View more details on this award.
  5. Many of our students are also eligible (based upon their areas of research) to seek support from the growing resources of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center. Currently, the Center provides two Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowships:
    • OCSC Summer Research Fellowships are open to any doctoral student in the University pursuing research in Orthodox Christian studies broadly conceived. Fields of research are open to all chronological periods, geographic regions, and methodological disciplines so long as the project relates to the thought, history, or culture of Orthodox Christianity. Priority will be given to those projects that in some way advance Orthodox Christian Studies as a field in its own right. Adjudication of applications will follow guidelines established in the Center's successful National Endowment for the Humanities Matching Grant application and in conformity with the regulations of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

For additional information, please visit GSAS financial aid or contact the theology department at [email protected]