Grants and Writing Resources for the University of South Dakota
In April 2026, twelve USD undergraduates received the university's Undergraduate Research Awards, each with a $500 prize. Four of them study music. Their projects ranged from a study of Winnebago Ho-Chunk ethnomusicology to a predictive model of West Nile virus in South Dakota built on public health and climate data. Every student who presents at IdeaFest is nominated, and a panel of faculty and staff from several disciplines picks the winners.
Summer Stipends and Mini-Grants
The UDiscover Summer Scholar Program is open to undergraduates in any academic field. Each 2026 scholar received a $5,500 stipend and committed to at least 300 hours of summer research with a faculty mentor. The program belongs to the Council for Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship (CURCS).
CURCS also runs Mini-Grants for full-time, degree-seeking undergraduates. The money can start a new project, carry on an existing one, or pay for travel to present accepted work at a regional, national or international conference. Recipients present at IdeaFest. The undergraduate research office notes that first- and second-year students can join research teams and earn these grants.
IdeaFest and Graduate Awards
USD has celebrated student research for more than 30 years. IdeaFest, its two-day spring symposium, brings undergraduates and graduate students together in mixed-discipline sessions and student panels, with more than 100 posters and excerpts of College of Fine Arts performances.
Graduate students can request up to $750 through the Graduate School's Graduate Research and Creative Scholarship Grants, which the Graduate Council awards competitively in fall and spring. A faculty advisor submits a recommendation, winners present at IdeaFest, and no one wins twice in an academic year. The same office nominates recent graduates for the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award, which carries $2,000, and for the MAGS Distinguished Thesis Award, a $750 honorarium. The Three Minute Thesis competition pays $350, $250 and $150 to its top finishers, and first place goes on to the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools contest. For STEM doctoral students whose dissertations relate to the biomedical sciences, the NIH-funded SEEDS-T32 program gives Ph.D. fellows a stipend, tuition and fees for up to two years.
Journals and Readings
The creative writing program lets undergraduates work on the editorial and circulation side of South Dakota Review, a quarterly of creative and critical writing. The Vermillion Literary Project is a student organization founded in 1982 and directed by the English Department. It holds writing contests, open-mic readings and an annual writers festival, and it publishes a yearly anthology, the Red Coyote.
Law students publish the South Dakota Law Review three times a year, mixing student notes and comments with articles by legal professionals. Honors theses, IdeaFest work and graduate theses all have collections in USD RED, the University Libraries repository.
Help With Writing and Theses
The Writing Center takes drop-ins and scheduled appointments in I.D. Weeks Library 133. It also meets students in Sioux Falls and on Zoom through the Online Writing Center in D2L, where a student can upload a draft and usually get comments back within a couple of days. Consultants work on M.A. theses, dissertations, grants and proposals as well as class papers.
For the final document, the Graduate School's Graduate Student Resources page links the Thesis & Dissertation Guide, with a training video and the ProQuest submission steps.
Before a thesis goes to ProQuest or a paper goes out for review, our editors can give it a final check for grammar, consistency and format. See our University of South Dakota dissertation and thesis editing and University of South Dakota 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 South Dakota, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your USD writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.