Graduate Funding

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In tandem with the Graduate School, the department offers a limited number of packages of guaranteed funding for four or five years to incoming students. In addition, generous donations from History Department alumni and emeritus faculty have enabled the Graduate Program to create several new entering fellowships:

• The George L. Mosse Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowships in Jewish History (pdf)
• The George L. Mosse Fellowship in Gay and Lesbian History (pdf)
• The Julie A. and Peter M. Weil Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in American History (pdf)  

Students accepted into the program are automatically considered for any of these fellowships for which they are eligible.

The Theodore Herfurth, Jr., family’s extraordinary gift to the Graduate Program funds graduate student research at all levels.

The great majority of students in the program find their funding through project assistantships (PAships) and teaching assistantships (TAships).  Many also receive a FLAS in the course of their studies.  Some fields also have field specific funding:

• The Thomas and Sheila Spear Fund in African History
• The Gerda Lerner Fellowship in Women’s History in the Gender and Women’s History Program
• The Petrovitch funds in Russian History

Individual programs also work with students to secure fellowships from interdisciplinary sources on campus:

• The Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program
• The Center for European Studies
• The Medieval Studies Program
• The Southeast Asian Studies Program

For pre-dissertators, the Graduate Program also offers a series of single-semester fellowships (stipend, tuition, and benefits), awarded on a competitive basis. Some of these fellowships are supported by generous donations from alumni:

• James F. Vander Schaaf Fund
• The Judith Cochran Memorial Fund
• The Norman J. Risjord Fund
• The Marshall and Jane Beard Fund

Once students have passed their preliminary examinations and completed their language and minor requirements (usually in the fourth year), costs fall dramatically.  For up-to-date information on tuition rates, see the Office of the Registrar at http://registrar.wisc.edu/students/fees_tuition/tuition.php.  Dissertators compete for a variety of university-level and department-level fellowships. Among the important department fellowships endowed by alumni benefactors are:

• The Martha L. Edwards History Scholarship for Women
• The William Appleman Williams Fellowship
• The Roger Blattberg Fellowship
• The Colonial Dames Fellowship in Early American History
• Dennis R.A. and Martha Washburn Wharton Fellowships
• The Minna Grotophorst Willis Scholarship in History
• The Doric G. Quinn Fellowship to support a student for the full final write-up year of the dissertation

Individual faculty advisors and the Graduate Program staff also work with students to help them obtain national and international sources of funding. UW History Department graduate students have a strong record in competition for:

• Fulbright Fellowships
• Javits Fellowships
• Woodrow Wilson Grants
• FLAS

External Opportunities Fund - The Department of History encourages graduate students to seek outside fellowships, especially those funded by major foundations and scholarly associations. The purpose of these awards is to allow students to concentrate on their seminar work or dissertations. They enhance students’ academic profiles, augment their confidence, and shorten the time it takes to reach the doctoral degree. Such awards are also a major source of funding that could appreciably improve the Department’s ability to support graduate education.

In order to facilitate receipt of external awards, the Department has created the External Opportunities Fund (EOF). The EOF will make it possible for graduate students to apply for such awards, and will encourage them to do so in a systematic manner.

• External Opportunies Fund Information and Application (pdf)