Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Southern Mississippi

In April 2026 a polymer science junior in the Honors College received a Goldwater Scholarship, the 30th Southern Miss student to win it. In 2025 the same student became one of the first Southern Miss students named a Beckman Scholar, and the student has co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. On April 28 the university reported that the two student journalism centers in the School of Media and Communication had won 33 Mississippi Association of Broadcasters awards, Television Student Broadcaster of the Year among them.

Drapeau Center Grants

Undergraduate research grants at Southern Miss come from the Drapeau Center for Undergraduate Research. An Eagle SPUR grant pays up to $1,000 for a one- or two-semester project, with up to $500 more for travel to a conference or an archive. The money can also buy equipment and supplies or pay the student a stipend. Students presenting at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research apply for travel money through Eagle SPUR.

The Drapeau Summer Research Grant is larger and rarer. It pays a $4,000 stipend and up to $1,500 in costs to a student doing full-time research for at least eight weeks, and the center typically makes one or two awards a year. A small fund covers opportunities that turn up after a deadline has passed, such as an invited exhibit or a master class, provided a faculty mentor backs the request and at least one partner shares the cost.

Symposium Prizes and Mississippi Review

Every April the Undergraduate Symposium on Research and Creative Activity pairs research presentations with an Arts Showcase. Donald Drapeau sponsors the presentation awards and Southern Miss Partners for the Arts sponsors the showcase awards; the Honors College puts the prize pool at over $17,000. The 2025 symposium gave Drapeau awards in categories from art history to policies and politics. It also gave a prize for the best presentation in women's and gender studies and a Creative Writing award in the Arts Showcase.

Mississippi Review was founded at Southern Miss in 1972 and is housed in the Center for Writers. It publishes fiction, nonfiction and poetry twice a year and runs an annual contest with prizes in each genre.

Honors Theses and National Scholarships

Honors students spend their last two years on the Honors thesis, which can be a traditional, creative or applied design project. The college's Excellence in Research awards honor theses in five categories: Creative, Applied Design, Behavioral Science, Humanities and STEM.

The Honors College also houses the Office of Nationally Competitive Programs and Awards, which advises students and alumni on the Truman, Marshall, Goldwater and Rhodes and many other awards. Its four-year plan asks students to start preparing in the freshman year.

Grants for Graduate Researchers

For 2026-27 the Graduate School and the Jimmy A. Payne Foundation offer a Dissertation Completion Grant of up to $2,000. It goes to full-time doctoral candidates who have passed comprehensive exams and defended a proposal. Allowable costs include data collection and analysis, transcription, editing assistance, supplies and travel for data collection.

The Graduate School's research and graduate awards page lists the rest. Competitive Travel Awards pay up to $500 for domestic travel or virtual registration and up to $1,000 for approved international travel, and they are offered every semester. A Proposal Project Grant Award of $500 rewards a student for submitting an approved proposal to an outside fellowship or funding agency, whether or not the proposal is funded. Graduate students can also win cash in the Three Minute Thesis competition, which online students enter virtually, and present posters or talks at the Susan A. Siltanen Graduate Student Research Symposium.

Writing Center, Templates and Aquila

The Writing Center works with students in every discipline from Cook Library, Room 112. Sessions can be face to face or streamed. For e-tutoring, a student uploads a paper and books a time; when the slot ends, a document with the tutor's feedback is waiting in the session report.

Every thesis, dissertation and doctoral project must be set in one of four Graduate School templates before it goes to Aquila. Template 1 suits most non-STEM fields, Template 2 is for creative projects, Template 3 is for STEM and Template 4 is for the School of Music. A Documents Specialist answers formatting questions and supplies LaTeX files. Graduate School and Writing Center staff run bootcamps on writing, citation, formatting and submission, some on campus and some online. Dissertations, doctoral projects, master's theses and Honors theses are collected in The Aquila Digital Community, the university's institutional repository.

A dissertation already set in a Graduate School template, or an Honors thesis close to its deadline, can go to our editors for a final check of grammar, consistency and format. See our University of Southern Mississippi dissertation and thesis editing and University of Southern Mississippi essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• The Secret to Better Grades: Starting Your Writing Process Early
• Writing the Abstract and Title: First Impressions Matter
• ProQuest Readiness: The Final Mechanical Audit