Grants and Writing Resources for Marymount University

Seventeen students from Virginia's independent colleges make up the first cohort of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges Presidential Scholars Program, and one of them is a Marymount cybersecurity student beginning her sophomore year. An assistant professor of cybersecurity nominated her. Marymount reported the news in August 2026. The three-year program provides financial support, and scholars receive one-on-one mentoring from their university president.

Research With a Faculty Mentor

Discover Research is Marymount's virtual center for student researchers in every major, undergraduate and graduate. Its Summer Research Fellowship places 15 to 18 students a summer with a faculty mentor, one on one, on the mentor's project, and pays a stipend. Applicants can list up to three projects but receive one fellowship at most. Faculty rank the candidates and a research committee makes the match. In 2025 the fellowship ran six weeks at 12 to 15 hours a week, in person or remote.

Honors students write a thesis. The Honors Program builds it in two research tutorials, one for the proposal and one for the thesis, and students must defend the finished work while keeping a 3.5 GPA.

Presenting and Travel Money

The Student Research Conference comes around every April. The 2026 conference met on April 15 at the Ballston Center, with undergraduate and graduate projects in global health, sustainable technology and equitable education.

For outside meetings, the Office of Research's Conference Travel Support has offered a travel award of up to $750 for registration and travel costs, typically for a student presenting accepted work at a major conference. When students co-present, the presenting author receives the full $750 and up to three co-presenters receive registration awards. Applicants need a semester or nine credits at Marymount behind them, and recipients are expected to submit the same work to the Student Research Conference.

Where Student Writing Appears

Students edit and produce two annual publications. Magnificat: A Journal of Undergraduate Nonfiction prints essays by undergraduates in any field, up to two per student per issue, and comes out at the Literature and Languages program's Spring Celebration. Send a Word file with the essay title and the course it came from.

blueInk publishes poetry, fiction and visual art from any current student, graduate or undergraduate. A Literary Committee and an Art and Design Committee judge entries anonymously. The magazine launches each spring at the Student Art and Design Exhibition, with a circulation of 300 and a PDF edition.

Writing Help and Thesis Deposit

Writing help runs through the Student Academic Hub. For undergraduates, peer tutoring covers course content and academic writing. The graduate side of the Hub offers peer tutoring in academic writing, academic coaching and English as an Additional Language support.

Graduate students file a dissertation or thesis only after the committee has approved and signed it. The library's submission guide asks for a single PDF with the title page and signed approval form, sent through ProQuest's ETD Administrator; for the D.Sc. in Cybersecurity, ProQuest submission is a degree requirement. Work filed this way also goes into the university's institutional repository. Undergraduates add an approved thesis or project with a Student Submission Form, and authors keep the copyright.

Before a dissertation goes to ProQuest or an essay goes to Magnificat, our editors can give it a final check for grammar, consistency and format. See our Marymount University dissertation and thesis editing and Marymount University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write a Personal Essay: Reflection & Growth
• ProQuest Readiness: The Final Mechanical Audit
• The Literature Review: Avoiding Intellectual Overwhelm