Grants and Writing Resources for Howard University
A junior in Howard's Honors Journalism program won Best Online News Reporting at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, held in Atlanta in August 2026. The winning story reported on how hard it is for Howard seniors to get timely mental health support.
Where Student Research Appears
Howard University Research Month is the annual showcase for the university's grants, scholarly projects and creative works. Its Research Symposium, held in the Armour J. Blackburn Center, puts student and faculty posters and oral presentations side by side. Entries go in by abstract alone, under categories that run from Biological and Biomedical Sciences to Creative Arts and Design, Humanities and Social Sciences.
Ukweli: The Howard University Undergraduate Research Journal takes its name from the Swahili word for truth. Founded in 2020, it is student-led and faculty-supported and comes out twice a year. The first author must be a Howard undergraduate, or an alum within a year of graduating. Student reviewers in the paper's discipline read each submission, and a faculty reviewer gives accepted work a final check. Published authors are considered for three awards, Best in Natural Sciences/Engineering, Best in Social Sciences/Humanities and Best in Communications/Business, presented during Research Month.
National Awards and Honors Theses
The ACE Scholars Office in the Office of Undergraduate Studies helps students apply for national and international merit awards, with coaching on essays and interviews. Its list includes the Goldwater, Truman, Marshall and Schwarzman awards and Pickering Fellowships. The office reports that Howard has been a top producer of Gilman Scholars for the past 20 years.
Howard runs four undergraduate honors programs. In the College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, every student completes an Honors Senior Thesis in the major. For research during the degree, the Office of Undergraduate Studies keeps a list of campus research programs that includes the Karsh STEM Scholars Program, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and the W. Montague Cobb Research Laboratory.
Graduate Assistantships and Fellowships
The Graduate School's competitive awards begin with three merit assistantships for incoming Ph.D. students, named for Edward Alexander Bouchet, Frederick Douglass and Ronald E. McNair. Applicants may seek only one of the three, and the McNair award is for students who were McNair scholars as undergraduates. Awards go on the recommendation of the department and the Financial Aid Advisory Committee.
Later in the degree, continuing doctoral students can hold the Ernest E. Just-Percy L. Julian Graduate Research Assistantship for one year. Candidates in their final year compete for the Hawthorne Dissertation Research Fellowship, a non-service award for finishing the dissertation. The Sasakawa Young Leaders Foundation Fellowship gives two years of full support to social science candidates whose research centers on international affairs or world peace. The one-year Esther Ottley Fellowship goes to a woman doctoral candidate who shows leadership, and it carries a 15-hour weekly internship in the Dean's office.
Writing Help and the Dissertation
The Writing Center in Alain Locke Hall pairs students with trained graduate and undergraduate tutors, one-on-one, in person or online. Sessions run from interpreting an assignment and organizing a paper to choosing and citing sources. Tutors also work with students on recurring grammar problems.
Doctoral students have the Dissertation & Research Lab Series, run by the Office of Graduate Student Affairs. Its workshops and panels follow the dissertation from the proposal and literature review through the defense and publication, and it holds multi-day writing retreats in winter and spring. After the oral defense, candidates upload the final document to ProQuest Dissertation Publishing, as the Graduate School's graduation guide sets out. Through Digital Howard, the Howard University Archives preserves the university's theses and dissertations along with its records and publications.
A dissertation bound for ProQuest or a paper going to Ukweli can come to our editors for a final check of grammar, consistency and format. See our Howard University dissertation and thesis editing and Howard 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 Howard University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your Howard writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.