Our department has regularly at its disposal two forms of financial aid for graduate students in Rhetoric: Associate Instructorships and Fellowships. Loan and work-study eligibility are determined by the Office of Student Financial Assistance.
Students accepted into the program with an M.A. in hand generally will teach W131: Reading, Writing, and Inquiry in their first year and then P155: Public Oral Communication in their second year. For students accepted into the program without an M.A. this sequence generally is reversed, so that they will teach P155 in their first year and W131 in their second year. Generally, these first-year appointments will be succeeded by at least three years of Associate Instructorship, in which AIs will teach their own sections of Composition or Rhetoric courses, provided the student makes reasonable progress toward fulfilling degree requirements. Typically, students in the Rhetoric concentration who make reasonable progress toward fulfilling degree requirements will be awarded a non-teaching Dissertation Year Fellowship (for students admitted in 2017, $20,000 plus tuition and fee remission) in their fifth year in the program.