Grants and Writing Resources for Austin Peay State University
Ten students from Austin Peay's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences went to the 2026 Tennessee Geoconclave at Big Ridge State Park in late September and came back with the Overall Championship and the Rock Bowl. APSU had swept both titles the year before, and it is the first school in the meet's four-decade history to do so in consecutive years. The four-student Rock Bowl team won in three rounds.
Research Grants and the Spring Symposium
The Office of Undergraduate Research and Innovative Learning (URIL) awards the Student Research Grant, up to $2,000 a project in the 2026-27 round. Money can go to supplies, data sets, transcription, presentation and publication costs, and to research for papers, theses and dissertations. Within a grant, travel and scholarship money are each capped at $500. The faculty mentor submits the proposal and receives the funds. A student may hold one grant in any two years, and funded students present at URIL's spring symposium and write a one-page summary of findings. Separate Student Travel Awards pay up to $500 for conferences in North America and the Caribbean and up to $750 elsewhere, for students with at least a 2.5 GPA.
The 2026 symposium ran in April in the Health Professions Building, with 48-by-36-inch posters and oral talks of 10 to 15 minutes. URIL helps pay for poster printing when a department can't. Graduate students have the Research and Creativity Forum late in the spring term, with divisions for creative work, completed data-based research and non-empirical research.
Arts Grants and Student Journals
The Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts funds Transformative Student Experience Grants for students in art and design, creative writing, music, and theatre and dance. In summer 2026 six students used them. Two theatre students made off-Broadway appearances with Farm Lab Theater, and a music student spent three weeks at a vocal academy in Italy with daily Italian classes.
APSU's student-run literary magazine, the Red Mud Review, now goes by The 601. URIL's journal list names two APSU titles: the Theta-Delta Journal of the campus Phi Alpha Theta chapter, and Philomathes, a peer-reviewed annual from the Classics program on the Greek and Roman world. In April 2026 the Zone 3 Writers Festival held craft talks, readings and workshops on the main campus with visiting writers and APSU faculty.
Graduate Funding and Fellowships
The College of Graduate Studies offers teaching, research and administrative assistantships of about 20 hours a week, each with an academic-year stipend of at least $5,200. Teaching and research assistants also get a full tuition waiver for up to 10 graduate credit hours a semester. Positions are few at any given time.
APSU's Phi Kappa Phi chapter may nominate one student for the national Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship, which currently pays $8,500, $15,000 or $35,000 for a first year of graduate study. The chapter also gives two $500 Charles M. Waters Scholarships to junior members each spring.
Writing Center and the Thesis Manual
The Writing Center sits on the main floor of the Woodward Library and offers free one-on-one sessions with peer tutors, plus eTutoring. Its policies describe 30- and 60-minute sessions in which tutors work on two or three kinds of error per session. Graduate and doctoral students submit work in smaller sections, and the center recommends in-person appointments for dissertations.
Field studies, theses and dissertations follow the College of Graduate Studies' Field Study, Thesis, and Dissertation Manual, revised in August 2022. Where it conflicts with APA, Chicago or another discipline manual, the APSU manual governs. The college reviews each paper before final approval, and the finished PDF goes to ProQuest at least three weeks before graduation. Doctoral students can find the dissertation timeline on the doctoral research guidance page.
Our editors can read a thesis or dissertation against the APSU manual for grammar, consistency and format before it goes to the College of Graduate Studies. See our Austin Peay State University dissertation and thesis editing and Austin Peay State University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.
From Our Writing Guides
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Managing Editor of Editors For Students. Links checked October 2026.
Editors For Students is an independent editorial service and is not affiliated with Austin Peay State University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your Austin Peay writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.