The department provides financial support to graduate students in the form of teaching assistantships, research assistantships and scholarships.
In the MA program there are three streams and funding is adjusted accordingly. For the one year course work-only stream, students typically receive funding for three terms consisting of two teaching or research assistantships plus scholarship funding. For the Research Paper, students typically receive funding for four terms; generally three teaching assistantships or research assistantships plus scholarship funding. In the MA thesis stream (normally two years to completion) students are funded for four terms and typically receive three teaching or research assistantships and scholarship funding.
Full-time PhD students typically receive eight teaching assistantships, contingent upon the achievement of satisfactory progress in their degree programs (see below). In addition, there are a number of scholarships awarded each year to students with superior academic records (normally, a minimum A- average). Both incoming and continuing students are automatically considered for these awards.
In order to be eligible for financial support made available by the department, students are required to make satisfactory progress in their academic programs. An important indicator of "satisfactory progress" is the timely completion of basic academic program requirements (namely, graduate course work, comprehensive examinations, dissertation proposal, and dissertation).
Note: Students are also reminded that there are other external scholarships (e.g. OGS, SSHRC, CIHR) for which they may apply. See also: President's Graduate Scholarship.