Financial assistance is available through many sources. For information about these opportunities, please click on the link below.

Go to Rackham Funding Resources

This website is accessible to currently enrolled graduate students. Funding is available for a wide variety of research projects. The website enables students to apply to all eligible funding sources with one application.

Go to LSA-Gateway to Internal Funding

After being admitted into our graduate program, you will receive an official letter from the Chair listing all support and requirements. The letter identifies the degree program and the amounts and duration of support. Unless otherwise indicated, all support is for the academic year only, and includes predetermined stipends and fringe benefits as well as a tuition waiver. Summer support is not guaranteed by the department. Benefits continue for students who have an appointment for the following fall term or through separate arrangements. Appointments in the Summer Language Institute may be available. Beyond the time period indicated for your degree, further support may be obtained through the sources listed on the Rackham Graduate School website.

In order to receive continued assistance, you will need to be a student in good standing; meet degree requirements; perform GSI duties acceptably; and make progress towards the graduate degree according to schedule.

Questions? Contact the Student Coordinator at german.dept@umich.edu or by telephone at 734.764.8018.

Graduate Student Instructorships

The department is strongly committed to its students and regards teaching as an important part of graduate education. All graduate students can expect to teach for our Department in the course of their graduate career.

Ideally, this experience should be diversified further. In principle, the Department supports graduate students assuming GSI positions in other departments, and students should pursue these possibilities actively themselves so that they have this type of teaching experience in addition to teaching in the GDS.

Departmental GSI Hiring Policy

In assigning Graduate Student Instructorships, the Language Program Director will give preference to qualified graduate students enrolled in GDS's programs. Students are hired primarily for the Fall and Winter semesters, but a limited number of spring and summer positions may also be available.

While there is no separate application process for graduate students in the program, students are invited to state their preference for specific courses or sections in a teaching preference questionnaire distributed during the previous semester. Selection criteria for GSIs include qualifications, seniority, academic progress, and the relevance of a particular position to a student's graduate training.

The Summer Language Institute

Every year German Studies appoints a limited number of GSIs to teach intensive German courses during the Summer Language Institute. These are appointments at a 75% fraction and they do not count towards the ten-term rule. Teaching preference questionnaires for the SLI are delivered to graduate students' mailboxes in early February.

Our Department is often able to make cash awards from its scholarship funds to support graduate study or research during the spring/summer semesters. These awards are intended to reduce graduate students' reliance on teaching or other employment as they prepare to fulfill the requirements for the Ph.D. degree (e.g. prelims, prospectus, dissertation, qualifying research paper, etc.). They are not intended to support travel to conferences, the writing of seminar papers or the writing of articles for publication. These awards do not entail waiver of tuition or other fees.

Each Winter term, graduate students are invited to apply for such funding to be used in the coming year. The application procedure requires:

• A 500-word proposal describing work that the student can reasonably expect to accomplish in the given period of time. Students should state clearly the goal for the award period, how the award will help him/her progress academically, and how the proposed work fits into the overall degree trajectory.
• An itemized estimate of expenses to be covered by the award.
• A brief outline of the student's progress to degree (no more than 250 words).
• A letter of support from your principal advisor.

Awardees must agree to submit a brief report within 30 days after the end of the period of support. Spring/summer awardees need not be enrolled or on campus.

Students are encouraged to submit their application materials (including letters of support) electronically to the student coordinator (german.dept@umich.edu).

Electronic applications should be submitted as a single file, labeled as [student's name].doc (e.g. einstein.doc); letters of recommendation should be submitted under the same name. If you do not submit electronically, please submit six (6) hard copies of all materials to the Student Coordinator, Germanic Dept. Selection will be made by the departmental Executive Committee.

The deadline for submission of proposals is the second Monday in March.

Our Department can nominate candidates who are in the final stages of writing their dissertations for a Rackham One-Term Dissertation Fellowship. Go to External Funding for more information.

Information on funding available through CES for Graduate and Undergraduate students.

Questions should be directed to CREES/CES Student Services Associate at ces.fellowships@umich.edu or 734.764.0351.