Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
In January 2026 a UMass Law student took second place in the Stein Memorial Writing Competition, run by the Labor and Employment Law Section of the New York State Bar Association. Her paper on service animals and emotional support animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act began in a summer research and writing seminar for law students. She presented it at the association's annual meeting in New York City, and it is set for publication in the section's Labor and Employment Journal later in 2026.
Research Funding
The Office of Undergraduate Research gives small Fall and Spring Research Grants to help with project costs in any field, and every enrolled undergraduate can apply. Summer Research Grants are competitive awards for full-time research over the summer. A travel award pays part of conference registration, lodging, airfare and mileage once a student has an accepted conference proposal, and the office also supports off-campus fieldwork and archival research.
Honors students can add Honors College funding. An APEX Support Grant of up to $500 covers APEX research costs when a mentor has no funds for them, and a Student Travel Grant of up to $500 helps with presenting at a professional conference. The Summer Research Fellowship (SuRF) pays a stipend of up to $3,400 plus up to $500 for materials or equipment. Six students were named SuRF fellows in May 2026, five of them in bioengineering or biology.
Where Students Present
The Spring Student Research Symposium continues the Sigma Xi Research Exhibition. It is a poster session held each April in the Claire T. Carney Library Livingroom, with separate undergraduate and graduate competitions. Judges score the content, the design and the presenter's explanation. First place in each division pays $500 and second place pays $250. The 2026 symposium was the 30th.
The Three Minute Thesis allows one static slide and no props, and a speaker who runs past three minutes is disqualified. In the Office of Undergraduate Research competition, first place is worth $1,000, second $500 and third $250, with a $250 People's Choice Award on top. Undergraduate and graduate students in the English and Communication department join panel discussions and present posters at the department's Student Research Conference.
Where Student Work Appears
Corridors publishes the year's best undergraduate essays in English and Communication Studies, chosen through anonymous faculty review. Volume 7 covers 2025-26. Temper, the student literary review, has come out every year since 1971 with fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Undergraduate researchers also post reports and field notes on the OUR Work blog.
Law students edit the UMass Law Review, which prints two issues per volume, in January and May. The Review marked 20 years in 2026; its first volume appeared in January 2006 under the Southern New England School of Law.
Fellowships and Graduate Awards
Distinguished Doctoral Fellowships pay a $24,000 annual stipend with full tuition and college fee credit, guaranteed for up to four years after a bachelor's degree or three after a master's. First Year Doctoral Fellowships pay $20,000 for a year of coursework while the student finds a research advisor who can fund the later years. Distinguished Art Fellowships give MFA students $17,000 a year for up to three years. Each requires full-time enrollment and a 3.5 GPA.
In the final semester of a doctoral program, a student can receive dissertation writing support for one semester. The faculty advisor sends the request with the program director's endorsement, and the awards are competitive. A master's thesis whose research has produced an article published or accepted in a refereed journal can earn a Thesis of Distinction notation on the transcript. For MFA students, acceptance into a national or international juried exhibition counts.
Help With Writing and Theses
The Writing & Multiliteracy Center gives feedback on any assignment that involves writing or communication, for first-year students and tenured faculty alike. Sessions meet in person in the library's Scholarly Commons on the second floor or live online. Writers who prefer eTutoring upload a Word file or PDF and get written comments back.
Graduate Studies supplies Word templates for theses and dissertations and asks for a PDF draft for format review once the work is 90 to 95 percent complete. The final submission is a single PDF, sent with a distribution rights form and an ORCID iD. Accepted work goes to the library's Theses & Dissertations Repository.
Our editors give UMassD papers, theses and dissertations a final edit for grammar, consistency and format before they go to a professor or to Graduate Studies. See our UMass Dartmouth dissertation and thesis editing and UMass Dartmouth 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 the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your UMassD writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.