Graduate Student Financial Support
Sociology & Criminology Teaching Assistantships
The Department of Sociology & Criminology offers a limited number of teaching assistantships for qualified students. Teaching assistants receive a tuition waiver and a stipend. Assistantships for the coming academic year are awarded in the spring.
If you wish to be considered for an assistantship, your application materials must be received by the Department no later than February 15th. You will be notified of your admission to the graduate program by March 15th and you will learn if you've been awarded a teaching assistantship by April 15th.
Check the Graduate Cost of Attendance page for the most current costs of graduate study at the University of Montana.
Students also pursue research assistantships, paid internships, and university grants.
Additional Scholarships
All graduate students should complete the UM Scholarship Portal general application to see if they are eligible for university scholarships. Some opportunities require supplemental application materials. The following are three university graduate student scholarships. This is not an exhaustive list.
These are campus-wide awards of $3,000 - $5000, chosen by the University Graduate Council each spring from nominations by campus programs. The criteria for nomination include: honors and awards; professional credentials; research, creative scholarship, and academic achievements; work experience; professional, university, and community activity/accolades. Recipients must be enrolled graduate students at the University of Montana (in other words, recipients typically use the funding in their second year of school.)
A renewable $2,000 annual award for a full-time graduate student with financial need who is a single parent with dependent children residing in the home.
Apply to the Andrew and Elizabeth Lassen Endowed Scholarship
A renewable $2,000 annual award for a graduate student with financial need.
In order to apply for the scholarship, you will need to fill out the general application on the scholarship portal. You will then be able to select the Dennis and Phyllis Washington opportunity.
Travel Funding and Research Awards
- Alpha Kappa Delta Graduate Paper Competition -- first-place winners earn cash prizes, travel funds, and potential publication in Sociological Inquiry
- Michelle Williams (MA from UM) won the 2021 competition with the paper "'Its Own Little City': Customer Service in Truck Stops."
- Alpha Kappa Delta Student Research Travel Grants -- these grants help offset travel costs for AKD student members to present a paper or poster at a regional sociology meeting
- American Sociological Association Student Forum Travel Awards -- these awards help defray the cost of attending the annual ASA conference
- ASUM (Associated Students of the University of Montana) Research and Creative Scholarship Fund -- these awards cover research costs and travel for conference presentations and data collection. Undergraduate and graduate students at UM from any discipline can apply
- Pacific Sociological Association Student Travel Grants -- these grants cover travel and registration costs for students presenting at the annual PSA. PSA also offers a finite number of registration waivers for students who are not presenting at the conference but would like to attend.
- Rural Sociological Society's Master's Thesis Research Award -- these awards cover the cost, up to $2500, of collecting and analyzing data for students writing Master's theses.
Research
Most faculty members have projects underway with opportunities for graduate student participation. Students can undertake paid assistantships or unpaid opportunities to assist with research for course credit. In these roles, graduate students typically help collect interview or focus group data, run experiments, or conduct statistical analyses.