Financial Assistance
The Department of Communication admits only about six or seven applicants each year for entry in the fall term, out of up to 110 applications.
For those admitted, the department normally provides teaching assistantships or nonteaching fellowships that include a full-tuition scholarship, medical insurance, free public transportation, and a stipend for teaching services or full-time research. First-year students with MA in hand are eligible to apply for three departmental $3,000 summer research support grants.
Students with assistantships begin in their first Fall Semester by teaching
one section of Public Speaking in tandem with the Department's three-credit Teaching Practicum.
In the second semester of residency on assistantships, students teach two sections of public speaking and thereafter remain on a 1-2 or 2-1 teaching load for the duration of their funded offer.
Beyond teaching Public Speaking, there are a variety of other teaching opportunities within the department, such as teaching assistant positions in the large-lecture process courses and opportunities to design and implement standalone sections of courses below the 1000 level.
Other forms of financial assistance include:
University Assistance
- Andrew Mellow Predoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities
- Chancellor’s Graduate Fellowships in Chinese Studies
- Cultural Studies Fellowships
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships
- Graduate Tuition Scholarships
- Japanese Iron and Steel/Mitsubishi Graduate Fellowships in Japanese Studies
- Latin American Social and Public Policy Fellowships
- Leroy K. Irvis Fellowships for Students from Groups Underrepresented in the Academy
- Nationality Rooms Summer Travel Fellowships
- A&S Summer Research Fellowships
- Pitt Alumni Association Graduate Awards
- Provost's Development Fund Fellowships
- Provost's Humanities Fellowships
- Women's Studies Student Research Funds
- Women's Studies Teaching Fellowships
External Funding Recently Applied for by Communication Students
- American Association for University Women, American Dissertation
Fellowships (one received in 2006). - American Association for University Women, International Fellowships (one applied for in 2005).
- American Council of Learned Societies/Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowships (two applications pending)
- DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service (one applied in 2005)
- Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships, Predoctoral Fellowships (one
alternateship received in 2004) - Fulbright Doctoral Fellowships (one received in 2006)
- Swann Foundation Fellowship (Library of Congress, application pending in 2006)
- Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships (one applied for in 2005)
