Grants and Writing Resources for Ball State University

Ball State's speech team won the 2026 National Speech Championship at Belmont University in March, taking the 1st Place Team Award and the Top Non-Scholarship Team Award. Two of its students were individual national champions. It was the team's second title at the championship, after 2019.

Research Presentations

For more than thirty years the Ball State Student Symposium has given undergraduates and graduate students a place to present scholarly or creative projects to faculty and staff judges. It runs as part of CHIRPS Week. The Graduate School's Graduate Student Excellence Award goes to the top three graduate presentations at $500 each. In 2026 the symposium named 29 winners across 11 award groups, from biology and chemistry to landscape architecture, nursing and music.

Graduate students can also enter the annual Three Minute Thesis competition, listed on the Graduate School's student research page. Each presenter has three minutes or less to explain their research. Three cash prizes are awarded.

Research Grants

Undergraduates working with a faculty mentor can apply to the Office of Undergraduate Research for an Undergraduate Project Grant of up to $300 to cover project costs such as supplies and equipment. An Undergraduate Travel Grant of up to $300 pays travel and registration for students who present at a conference or exhibit creative work. Funding is limited.

Graduate students apply through ASPiRE, the internal grants program in Sponsored Projects Administration. Its Student Research and Student Creative Arts grants each pay up to $700 for master's students and up to $1,200 for doctoral students, with a faculty mentor required. A Student Travel grant of up to $700 is limited to invited presentations, and it can be used for publishing costs instead. Graduate students doing psychology-based research can also apply for the Joseph S. and Marcella W. Hollis Award.

Writing Prizes

The English department's scholarships and awards include several judged on writing. Creative writing faculty read entries for the Excellence in Creative Writing Scholarship anonymously, in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and screenwriting, and applicants may enter up to two genres per cycle. The Barry Wright Memorial Scholarship is given for poetry of artistic excellence and goes unawarded in years when no entry meets that standard. English majors with a 3.8 major GPA can submit a portfolio for Academic Honors in Writing, which appears on the transcript.

Spoken-word poets have Poetic Summit, Ball State's slam poetry organization, which competes at the national College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. The department's Graduate Student Advisory Board sponsors Practical Criticism Midwest, a student-run conference.

Writing Support and Thesis Submission

The Writing Center offers free one-on-one sessions in person and online, with daytime hours in Robert Bell and evening hours in Bracken Library. An online chat handles quick questions. It also hosts writing communities and studio space, and staff will build workshops for a class or student group on request. For graduate writers, the Graduate School sponsors a one-day boot camp called A Write Start, and the Research Design Studio gives free consultations on research methods and statistics.

The Graduate School's forms page posts the Graduate Thesis, Creative Project, and Research Paper Guide and a separate Dissertation Guide, along with title page and abstract templates. Final projects are uploaded through online forms. Eligible graduates then receive ProQuest publishing instructions by email. Ball State University Libraries keeps Cardinal Scholar, its institutional repository for scholarly research produced at the university.

When your draft is close and you want a careful last read, our editors are available. See our Ball State University dissertation and thesis editing and Ball State University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.