Grants and Writing Resources for Middle Tennessee State University

MTSU students and alumni took four 2026 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, MTSU News reported in May. A biology undergraduate will use one for a PhD in math and science education at MTSU starting in fall 2026. Another went to an incoming molecular biosciences doctoral student who had worked as a laboratory technician at MTSU with a biology professor. The other two recipients are former Honors students, a 2025 computer science graduate and a 2021 MTSU anthropology graduate. Each fellowship pays a $37,000 annual stipend for three years, plus a $16,000 cost-of-education allowance to the school. In June, four more MTSU students won Gilman scholarships, which the U.S. Department of State funds for undergraduates of limited means who study or intern abroad. Two of them are going to Japan.

Grants for Undergraduate Research

The Undergraduate Research Center pays for mentored projects through URECA, the Undergraduate Research Experience and Creative Activity program. Grants are sized for beginners up to experienced researchers and are paid to the student. A committee meets three times each academic year and awards the money on merit. All told, the center puts $120,000 a year into undergraduate research grants through URECA and its other programs.

URECA recipients who present their project at a regional, state, national or international conference can request URC travel funding of up to $300 for domestic trips or $400 for international ones. It covers lodging, transportation and registration and is paid as a reimbursement. Every application must show at least one other source of money, such as the student's department, academic college or the Honors College.

Scholars Week and Student Journals

The academic colleges organize Scholars Week each spring to show undergraduate, graduate and faculty work. It closes with a university-wide exposition of research posters and creative performances in the Student Union Ballroom, usually on a Friday in March or April, where university-wide poster winners are named.

Scientia et Humanitas, MTSU's Journal of Student Research, takes articles from every discipline the university offers. Any MTSU student or recent graduate can submit, alone or with a faculty member. Papers run 10 to 30 double-spaced pages with an abstract of no more than 250 words. Revised class papers, conference papers and Scholars Week projects are welcome, and the journal encourages adaptations of Honors and M.A. theses. Authors keep copyright, and articles appear under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Poetry, prose, photography, art, audio and video go to Collage: A Journal of Creative Expression, an Honors College publication that dates to 1968. A student editorial staff selects the work from submissions by MTSU students and alumni.

Essay Prizes in English

The Department of English gives several prizes for essays. The True Blue Core Writing Awards take essays from English 1009, 1010, 1020, 2020 and 2030, and the faculty member who assigned the essay makes the nomination. Each category pays $600 for first place, $400 for second and $200 for third. Any undergraduate or graduate student can enter the Neil D. Frasier Writing Award with an original essay of 1,000 to 2,500 words on the use or influence of the Bible in literature or the other humanities. Upper-division undergraduates are recognized through the William J. Connelly Writing Award.

Graduate students have two more. The William R. Wolfe Graduate Writing Award goes to the best essays written in MTSU English graduate courses, and each student may enter one essay from a graduate course, revised if they choose. Winners receive a monetary award and are recognized at the department's awards ceremony. The Kevin J. Donovan Graduate Award for Excellence in Scholarship dates to 2021–22 and is open to MA and PhD students in good standing who have completed 12 hours in the program. Applicants send their materials with a faculty letter of recommendation. From the award's fourth year on, the department lists one $3,000 award for an MA student and one $6,000 award for a PhD student.

National Awards and the Honors Thesis

Students preparing for national and international scholarships can book appointments with the Undergraduate Fellowships Office, which also runs workshops. MTSU students have won Fulbright, Goldwater, Gilman, Critical Language and Udall scholarships, and the office has had finalists for the Marshall, Rhodes and Truman. For NSF applicants it helps with essays and other application materials.

Every Honors College graduate completes a thesis over two consecutive semesters. The proposal comes out of UH 4900, a one-credit pass/fail tutorial usually taken in the second semester of junior year, for which students need a GPA of 3.25 or higher. A committee of the thesis director, the committee chair and sometimes a second reader approves it. The research or creative work is done in UH 4950, a three-credit graded course, and the defense is a presentation pitched to a multidisciplinary audience. Honors theses from spring 2015 onward are online in JEWLScholar.

Graduate Funding

MTSU offers administrative, teaching and research graduate assistantships each semester. Each pays a monthly stipend and a 100% tuition waiver, and out-of-state assistants have their out-of-state fees waived as well. Applicants need full admission and a 3.0 GPA, and doctoral assistants must keep a 3.25 to continue. The search starts with the student's academic department, and the College of Graduate Studies gives final approval.

Graduate students presenting research or creative scholarship at a conference can apply for College of Graduate Studies travel funding of up to $500 per fiscal year. The application needs proof that the presentation was accepted and the major professor's signature, and the money is paid after the trip.

The college's institutional scholarships include the Mary W. & Chester R. Martin Graduate Academic Scholarship, a one-semester tuition grant for first-semester graduate students from Tennessee or Kentucky with a 3.5 undergraduate GPA. The Foundation Graduate Student Scholarship goes to MTSU graduates with the same GPA, and it lasts up to one academic year.

Economics doctoral students can compete for fellowships from the Political Economy Research Institute. The PERI Ph.D. Fellowship covers tuition and fees and pays an annual stipend for 20 hours a week of graduate assistant work. It is a one-year appointment, renewable on a competitive basis, and each fellow is expected to write one publishable journal article over the summer. The PERI Ph.D. Summer Fellowship pays a summer stipend of $4,000 to $6,000 for progress on a journal article or dissertation chapter.

MTSU's Phi Kappa Phi chapter offers a Graduate Scholar Award to active members enrolled in an MTSU graduate program with a GPA of 3.75 or higher. It is a one-time $1,000 scholarship, paid in full or as two payments of $500.

Writing Help and Thesis Submission

The University Writing Center is in Room 362 of the James Walker Library. Students can meet a tutor there, work with one on a shared document through Online Live Chat, or upload a draft to the Online Document Drop and get feedback by email. Its writing groups include a Dissertation and Thesis Support Group for people writing doctoral dissertations, master's theses or honors theses.

Graduate theses and dissertations follow the University Style Guide, which requires 1-inch margins on every side. The guide states that the College of Graduate Studies recommends students have their papers proofread or edited before submission, and it asks students to consult their committee chair on editing procedures in their discipline. The advisory committee guides content and approval. Files are submitted through ProQuest, and the college's editor then reviews each one for needed changes such as bibliography or formatting edits. The college holds a thesis and dissertation workshop each semester in the MT Center in the Sam Ingram Building. JEWLScholar, MTSU's digital repository, keeps a Theses and Dissertations collection.

MTSU's style guide recommends proofreading or editing before a thesis goes to ProQuest, so once your committee chair has confirmed your department's editing practice, our editors can give the draft a final edit for grammar, consistency and format. See our MTSU dissertation and thesis editing and MTSU essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• From Dissertation to Publication: The Final Scholarly Synthesis
• Treating the Personal Statement as a Scholarly Defense
• How to Write an Analytical Essay: Analysis vs. Interpretation