Grants and Writing Resources for Point Loma Nazarene University
A student in PLNU's M.A. in Writing program won the 2026 AWP Intro Journals Project Prize for prose, the university reported in April 2026. Each writing program may nominate one piece per genre, and the field is mostly Ph.D. and MFA candidates. The winning essay will run in Colorado Review. It was the second year in a row that a student in the program took a national prize.
Research Funding in the Sciences
The Department of Biology runs undergraduate research in small groups alongside faculty and professionals in the field, with projects at government agencies, biotech firms and universities. In recent years up to six Biology majors have spent each summer on research with San Diego Zoo Global.
Much of the money comes from Research Associates, an auxiliary of the PLNU Alumni Association with 260 members drawn from biology and chemistry alumni and friends. It pays student stipends, supplies and equipment for the Summer Research Program. It also funds academic-year scholarships and helps students who present at professional conferences.
In 2027 PLNU hosts the 50th annual West Coast Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference, which Santa Clara University started in 1976. Undergraduates give oral or poster presentations of original work in biology, biochemistry and biophysics.
Honors Work and Theses
The Honors Program is a four-year interdisciplinary sequence of general education courses, open to students with a Provost's, Trustee's, President's Gold or President's Green Merit Scholarship in an eligible major. Seniors already enrolled at PLNU can still graduate with honors through the Honors Scholars program for seniors.
Finished honors projects are archived. Ryan Library's PLNU Institutional Repository, hosted by the Wesleyan-Holiness Digital Library, holds undergraduate honors projects from 2016 through 2025 and theses in biology, business, kinesiology, nursing and religion.
Where Student Writing Appears
The campus publications include Driftwood, a yearly creative arts journal. Members of the PLNU community submit fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art, photography, music and film each fall, and the print journal goes on sale in the spring. The Point is the student-run newspaper.
Writers come to campus for the Writer's Symposium by the Sea, an annual series of evening interviews led by its founder, journalism director Dean Nelson. The 2027 symposium, the 32nd, features Ann Patchett, Pádraig Ó Tuama and Edwidge Danticat. Graduate students in the M.A. in Writing meet the visiting writers and learn editing on an online literary journal.
Writing Centers and Graduate Funding
The Loma Writing Center is free to everyone at PLNU. It sits in Room 221 of Ryan Library and takes walk-ins, with online appointments booked at least a day ahead. Consultants help at any stage, from understanding an assignment and drafting a thesis statement to working in sources and planning revisions.
For graduate study, the GPS Writing Center offers workshops, writing courses and writing support in person and online. The same page lists Tutor.com, which gives graduate and accelerated undergraduate students three hours a month of tutoring, including essay feedback on structure and APA formatting.
M.A. in Writing students finish with a creative thesis written under a faculty mentor: a book-length work of poetry or prose, or a significant number of pages toward a longer project. Graduate teaching assistants in the program work 20 hours a week for full tuition remission and a stipend of about $10,000 a year. First-year assistants tutor mostly in the Loma Writing Center. In the second year they apply to teach College Composition, and funding continues for those approved to teach.
Once an honors project or thesis is drafted, our editors can check it for grammar, consistency and format before submission. See our Point Loma Nazarene University dissertation and thesis editing and Point Loma Nazarene 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 Point Loma Nazarene University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your PLNU writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.