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Funding

College of Arts and Science graduate students have access to a number of funding opportunities from sources both within and outside Vanderbilt. Below are lists of some of these opportunities. Please note that these grants each have their own, specific eligibility requirements and application procedures.

Keep in mind that these lists are by no means exhaustive. Your dissertation adviser, department's Director of Graduate Studies, or other mentors can assist you in locating funding sources in addition to those listed here. 

Internal Funding Opportunities

Mellon Graduate Fellowships in Digital Humanities

  • Mellon Graduate Fellows pursue training in digital humanities through coursework, research, or dissertation writing. These residential awards are intended for doctoral students in humanities or qualitative social sciences doctoral programs and students interested in enrolling in the Comparative Media Analysis and Practice (CMAP) program. The Center for Digital Humanities sends out announcements each spring with eligibility requirements and application procedures for these awards.

Robert Penn Warren Center Graduate Student Fellowships

  • Robert Penn Warren Center Graduate Student Fellowships are residential awards that offer A&S graduate students in the humanities and the social sciences a service-free year of support to enable full-time work on the dissertation. The competition is open to students whose dissertation director and Director of Graduate Studies approve a timetable for the dissertation's completion by the end (August) of the fellowship year.

 

Travel Grants

  • Travel Grants from the Graduate School support students who present their research at major regional, national, and international conferences. The Graduate Student Council provides travel grants to support students who present their personal research at conferences, symposia, workshops, etc.

Arts and Science Summer Language Training Grants

  • ​These grants are intended to enable students to proceed to candidacy and/or complete their dissertation research in a timely manner. This award encompasses “language training” broadly, including language-related skills such as paleography or instruction in computer/technical languages. It does not provide funds for instruction in the primary language of one’s academic discipline, nor for training in English. Availability of these grants varies from year to year. In years when these grants are available, an announcement will be sent out to Arts and Science departments in the spring with eligibility requirements and application procedures.

Arts and Science Summer Research Awards

  • Arts and Science Summer Research Awards awards provide funds for research expenses related to the doctoral thesis, other advanced research projects, or scholarly activities that significantly advance professional development. They are granted on a competitive basis. An announcement will be sent out to Arts and Science departments in the spring with eligibility requirements and application procedures for these awards.

Buchanan Library Fellowships

  • The Buchanan Library Fellows Program creates in-depth learning experiences for students. Library Fellows participate in strategic projects for the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries over the course of a semester or two. With faculty and professional librarians as mentors, students work on tactical library projects that will benefit library users.

Center for Teaching Graduate Fellowships

  • ​Each year, the Center for Teaching hires several Graduate Teaching Fellows as part of their efforts to mentor and train graduate students, including those serving as teaching assistants or instructors of record at Vanderbilt and those interested in developing teaching skills for future faculty careers.

The Curb Center Graduate Public Scholar Program

  • ​This program facilitates initiatives that explore creative ways to implement research findings, develop evidence-based public policies, and transform academic work into publicly available resources that increase access to cultural life. Public Scholars engage in research with the potential to make an impact not only in academia but also in the public sphere. They receive research funds, shared office space in the Curb Center, mentoring from faculty public scholars and Curb faculty, and support for public sharing of the final product. The Curb Center sends out announcements in the spring with eligibility requirements and application procedures for these awards.

HASTAC Graduate Fellowships

Writing Studio Employment

External Funding Opportunities
American Council of Learned Societies
American Historical Association
American Jewish Historical Society
American Philosophical Association
American Philosophical Society
American Research Center in Egypt
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Archaeological Institute of America
Association for Asian Studies
Association for the Sociology of Religion (Fichter Research Grant)
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Boston Athenaeum (Mary Catherine Mooney Fellowship)
California Institute of Technology
Center for Chinese Studies
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
David Center for the American Revolution
Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center
Explorers Club
Fulbright Student Program
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library (Dissertation Award)
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library (Research Travel Grant)
Gerda Henkel Stiftung
Getty Foundation
Grants.gov
Hagley Museum and Library
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello
Josephine de Karman Fellowship
Kansas State Historical Society
Kappa Omicron Nu
Kentucky Historical Society
Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center
Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation
Massachusetts Historical Society
National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine
National Archives and Records Administration
National Geographic Society
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Justice
New York Academy of Medicine
New York Public Library
Newberry Library
Phillips Exeter Academy
Religious Research Association
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Sigma Xi
Simons Foundation
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
Social Science Research Council
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
Southern Baptist Convention
Spencer Foundation
SPIN
Temple University Feinstein Center for American Jewish History
Tennessee Arts Commission
Tinker Foundation
U.S. Dept. of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies
U.S. Dept. of Education Fulbright-Hays Program
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Institute of Peace
University of Kansas Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics
University of Minnesota Charles Babbage Institute
University of Minnesota Immigration History Research Center
University of Southern Indiana Center for Communal Studies
University of Texas, Austin Briscoe Center for American History
Vermont Historical Society
Wenner-Gren Foundation
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Yale University International Security Studies
 
 
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES