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Funding more doctoral students

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CLA Doctoral Stipend Program

To support the expansion of doctoral education within CLA, the College has set aside funds for new doctoral stipends. Requests for stipends and/or top-offs will be submitted in the InfoReady Review Portal, an online portal for managing internal competitions at the University of Mississippi.

About Stipends

Based on a recommendation by GPCs, in order to factor in cost of living in Oxford, the College of Liberal Arts is raising stipend levels within the College to UM’s graduate student cost of attendance plus fringe (excluding tuition, which is covered). The 2024-2025 cost of attendance for residents is $26,760 (stipend) plus $4,014 (fringe) for a total of $30,774 per year.

Stipends will be provided for up to five years for approved new doctoral students. Once the College agrees to support a student, it will bank the money necessary to provide five full years of funding (over $153,870 in total). Five years will be the maximum number of years supported by the College for any one student, and if a CLA-supported student finishes his or her program in fewer than five years or leaves the program, the remaining funds cannot be transferred to another student in the department. 

Funding decisions are based on expressed need, past success with Ventress funded students, and current departmental resources for supporting graduate education.

There are two types of requests:

  1. Request for Stipend
  2. Request for Top-off (top off request should get students to the CLA articulated minimum stipend of $26,670)

Multiple requests are allowed (of each type or both types). However, please complete a separate submission for each individual requests. For example, if you would like to request a stipend for departmental TA needs and a request for supporting a research initiative in the department or associated center you will need to submit those request separately with justification.

InfoReady Deadline

Requests must be submitted into InfoReady by November 16, 2024. Late requests will not be considered. Decisions on stipend and top-off allocation will be made by December 20, 2024.
InfoReady Review Portal

InfoReady Form

The InfoReady form requests the following:

  1. Department Name
  2. Submitters Last Name
  3. Type of Request (choose only one option for each request)
    1. Stipend, or
    2. Top-off
  4. Name (Title) of the Request (follow the instructions in InfoReady)
  5. Describe departmental need for the request.
  6. Describe how this request will support research and/or teaching within your department.
  7. Provide your department’s 3-year rolling average graduation rate for PhDs. 

The submitter will be asked to confirm/certify that any College funds received will be used for doctoral students only after all other sources for doctoral support in the department have been exhausted.