Grants and Writing Resources for Salem State University

Between May 28 and June 29, 2026, thirteen Salem State Discovery Scholars logged more than 600 hours of environmental research in Salem. The scholars surveyed all 337 trees in Forest River Park and found that replanting after the 2023 ash removals had raised the park's tree biodiversity. They also flew drones over a young Miyawaki forest to measure surface temperature and plant health, and checked a living shoreline against aerial imagery, where they recorded erosion along paths and the water's edge.

Research Day and Conferences

Salem State has held Research Day for more than two decades. The morning session is the Undergraduate Research Symposium, where students from every school and department show posters, read papers, perform or display artwork. Graduate students and faculty take the afternoon with panels and poster sessions.

Any Salem State student can also apply to the Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference, held at UMass Amherst each April. Students in the Commonwealth Honors Program present at the National Collegiate Honors Council and Northeast Regional Honors Council meetings through the Honors Program Area Chair. The presentation opportunities page lists each one.

Paying for Research and Travel

Undergraduate research money sits with the academic departments and colleges, so the first conversation is with a faculty advisor or the department chair. Honors students receive scholarships of at least $1,000 a year and can ask the Honors Program Chair for the Commonwealth Honors Program Research and Travel Grant application. Graduate students who have a paper accepted at an academic or professional conference can apply to the School of Graduate Studies for a Graduate Student Presentation Travel Award, with the acceptance letter and a Salem State faculty sponsor. Both are described under Conducting Research.

Graduate and research assistants work 10 hours a week for $18 an hour, with tuition waived in fall and spring. Research assistants join faculty projects in archival work, interviews and surveys, and some go on to co-present or co-author with them. For awards after graduation, the Honors Program and Berry Library keep a fellowships guide covering Fulbright, Marshall, Rhodes and Truman, and it lists campus advisors where an award needs a university endorsement.

Where Student Writing Appears

Soundings East has published poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction since 1973. Graduate and upper-level undergraduate creative writing students edit it, with a writing faculty member as advisory editor, and Volume 48 came out in spring 2026. The journal also runs the Claire Keyes Poetry Award. The 2027 award carries $1,000 and publication for eight to ten pages of previously unpublished poems.

Students in the Professional Writing Concentration produce Red Skies Magazine online. It takes interviews, profiles, opinion pieces, travel essays, fiction and poetry, plus short films and audio stories. Senior honors theses go into the library's Digital Repository.

Tutoring and the Master's Thesis

The Mary G. Walsh Writing Center is on the first floor of the Frederick E. Berry Library and Learning Commons, on North Campus. Peer tutors meet writers in person or remotely. It serves undergraduates, graduate students and faculty, and each semester brings workshops on citing sources, brainstorming and revision.

Master's students who choose a thesis start with their graduate program coordinator, who helps find an advisor. After registering the thesis, the student checks the manuscript against the Thesis Specification in the School of Graduate Studies' guidance document, clears program approval and files the submission form. That form records the committee's approval and sends the thesis to the School of Graduate Studies for format review. The steps are on the Graduate Thesis Preparation page.

Before a thesis goes to the School of Graduate Studies for format review, or a paper goes to a professor, our editors can give it a final check for grammar, consistency and format. See our Salem State University dissertation and thesis editing and Salem State University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• The Secret to Better Grades: Starting Your Writing Process Early
• The Literature Review: Avoiding Intellectual Overwhelm
• Writing the Abstract and Title: First Impressions Matter