Grants and Writing Resources for William & Mary

In the spring 2026 semester, four W&M students and one alumnus won five national and international scholarships and fellowships, all through the Arts & Sciences Advising Center. A junior government major who studies human rights and democracy was named a Truman Scholar, chosen from 781 candidates at 305 colleges and universities, and W&M was one of 48 institutions with a winner that year. A junior biology major won a Udall Scholarship. A senior majoring in government and French and Francophone studies will spend a year as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow, working as a research assistant to senior scholars at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Summer Research and Honors Theses

The Charles Center for Undergraduate Research awards more than half a million dollars each summer, and one online application covers its two main awards. A Summer Research Grant pays $4,000 for seven full-time weeks of research, or at least 280 hours, and is open to freshmen, sophomores and juniors in any major. Juniors who plan to complete Departmental Honors can apply for the $5,000 Honors Fellowship, which covers 10 weeks or 400 hours. Applicants who miss the fellowship are considered for the grant automatically. The application asks for a short proposal, a two-slide narrated presentation of two minutes and a recommendation from a W&M faculty mentor. Named funds inside the program include the Hans Tiefel Scholarship for religion or philosophy and the Schroeder Summer Fellowship for health policy.

Grant holders present at the Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium, and Honors Fellows graduating in May present at the Spring Honors Research Symposium. A Departmental Honors project runs two semesters for six credit hours and ends in a written thesis and an oral defense before an examining committee.

Small Grants and Publishing Costs

During the academic year, Semester Research Grants of up to $500 pay for expenses tied directly to a research project, with money from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research. Undergraduates presenting at a conference in their field can apply year-round for a Research in Motion Travel Grant, whose amount depends on the number of applicants and the funds available. The Boswell-Caracci Material Culture Study Fund gives undergraduate and graduate students up to $1,000 to attend material culture symposia and programs.

Two dissemination grants cover the cost of getting finished research in front of readers. The Undergraduate Research Publication Grant pays submission fees, image copyright fees and chart or graph commissions for undergraduates who are first authors of peer-reviewed work, when the research idea started with the student. It can also pay printing and platform costs for a student-led journal. The Creative Research Dissemination Grant funds exhibitions, podcasts, websites and community events that share research results. Applicants ask their home department for funding first.

Journals and Literary Prizes

Students run the James Blair Historical Review, which has published original student research in any field of history since 2010. A staff of peer reviewers reads every submission, and a new edition comes out each semester. Noetica: Journal of Global Premodern Studies was founded by students and is affiliated with the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program. It is peer-reviewed and prints scholarly papers alongside creative work about the global premodern period. The Charles Center's list of student journals adds The Monitor for international relations and The Judaic Studies Review.

The English department's W&M Student Literary Awards are open to any current student in any major. Each of five categories pays $200 for first place, $100 for second and $50 for third. The categories are fiction, nonfiction, single poem, group of poems, and screenplay or drama, and winners read from their work at a prize ceremony in late April.

Graduate Research Funding and Awards

Arts & Sciences graduate students in good standing can apply for Graduate Research Grants, seed grants of up to $350 for research equipment and supplies, research travel, or fees to digitize materials when archive access is restricted. Each application includes a narrative of no more than 250 words and a budget. Advanced doctoral students in American Studies, Anthropology and History can also apply for Graduate Humanities Research and Conference Travel Grants, which pay for dissertation research and conference attendance. Doctoral students in the same three programs are eligible for the Michael R. Halleran Dissertation Completion Fellowships in the Humanities.

The Graduate Center hosts the annual Graduate Research Symposium. The 2026 symposium, "Building Bridges," ran February 26 and 27 with more than 100 W&M graduate students and 30 students from other universities, and it closed with an awards ceremony and a poster session. Written papers submitted for the symposium compete for the Awards for Excellence in Research. Graduate Studies also gives Distinguished Thesis and Dissertation Awards for exemplary original research.

Writing Help and Thesis Submission

The Writing and Communication Center is on the first floor of Swem Library and welcomes students from all disciplines and levels. Consultants work on academic essays, presentations, scripts, personal statements and creative writing, and the student sets the goals for each session. Graduate students also have the Graduate Writing & Communication Center, run with the Graduate Center. Its trained graduate consultants hold 50-minute appointments in person or online, read thesis and dissertation excerpts, and host weekly writing sprints.

Arts & Sciences theses and dissertations move through the W&M ETD Administrator. A complete draft goes up for format review before the defense, and the Office of Graduate Studies responds within five business days. The review covers format only, so content can keep changing. The Physical Standards call for a left margin of 1.5 to 2 inches and Arial or Computer Modern Sans Serif on the required pages. Approved work goes to ProQuest and to W&M ScholarWorks, where the university archives all theses and dissertations.

When an honors thesis, dissertation or seminar paper has its argument in place, a final edit from our editors can settle grammar, consistency and format. Our William & Mary dissertation and thesis editing and William & Mary essay editing pages explain how it works, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write a Literature Essay: Mastering Close Reading
• Writing the Abstract and Title: First Impressions Matter
• From Dissertation to Publication: The Final Scholarly Synthesis