Grants and Writing Resources for Valparaiso University

Classes were canceled on April 30, 2026, so the campus could attend the 28th Symposium on Research and Creative Expression. More than 200 Valpo students gave over 110 presentations that day. A biology and chemistry senior won first place in the undergraduate oral category for work on silicone wristbands as passive samplers in community exposure studies, and two Master of Education students took first in the graduate oral and poster categories.

Research Funding

Twice a year the Creative Work and Research Committee awards Guild Undergraduate Creative Work and Research Expense Grants. The University Guild's Student Research Endowment Fund puts $10,000 a year into the program, enough for about ten awards with a soft cap of $500 each. A grant can buy equipment, supplies and photocopying, or pay for travel, meals and lodging to present findings at a conference. Any full-time undergraduate may apply with a faculty sponsor, and projects a student initiates get priority over work on a faculty project.

Summer researchers can also get free university housing. The committee's Summer Research Housing Grant covers up to 12 weeks for students doing at least 30 hours of research or creative work a week with a faculty mentor, who submits the request.

Where Students Present

SORCE takes every student who submits an abstract of 250 words or fewer through ValpoScholar, and the presenter picks a tabletop poster, a wall poster or an oral talk. Oral sessions give each speaker 15 minutes plus five for questions. A few weeks after the event, accepted abstracts and files go into a permanent archive. Valpo also holds the Fall Internship and Research Symposium (FIReS) and a summer symposium, SIReS, tied to its Summer Research Program.

Christ College, the honors college, runs a Student Research Symposium whose papers are chosen by a committee of Christ College students reading anonymous abstracts. Since 2002 more than 200 Christ College students have had research selected for the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, with travel paid by gifts to the Christ College Dean's Annual Fund.

Fellowships and Graduate Awards

Students and alumni applying to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program work with the Institute for Leadership and Service, whose director is Valpo's primary Fulbright Program Advisor. The institute meets with applicants, and in April 2026 it held a personal statement and application workshop on campus. Christ College's student awards list Fulbright grants, the Orr Fellowship and the CAPS Fellowship Award, which recognizes a commitment to community service and to understanding vocation. The 2024 CAPS fellows completed summer internships with service organizations.

Graduate students may receive merit Graduate Scholarships of 10 to 20 percent of tuition. Offers are made at admission and appear on the admission letter. Valpo also offers graduate assistantships in university departments and athletic programs, and research assistantships place students on faculty research projects.

At graduation the Graduate School gives up to three Graduate Leadership & Service Awards at each Commencement banquet. Nomination to Athenaeum, the Graduate School honor society, calls for a 3.80 graduate GPA and the presentation or publication of scholarly or creative work in a public forum.

Writing Help and Theses

The Judith L. Beumer Writing Center works with undergraduate and graduate writers on assignments from any discipline. Face-to-face consultations usually last 25 to 30 minutes, and the center has a group of graduate writing consultants. When the green light on the sign outside is on, walk-ins are taken. The center is housed in the Christopher Center Library, according to the Graduate School's academic support page, which also notes that new international graduate students take GRAD 500 in their first semester, a required course covering academic integrity and research paper and presentation design.

Completed theses and honors papers are posted in ValpoScholar, the university repository, which keeps master's theses in nursing, information technology, English and communication, and TESOL, plus a Graduate Theses and Capstone Projects series and Undergraduate Honors Papers from 2016 on.

If a SORCE paper, honors paper or master's thesis needs a last check of grammar, consistency and format before submission, our editors can do it. See our Valparaiso University dissertation and thesis editing and Valparaiso University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write a Literature Essay: Mastering Close Reading
• Treating the Personal Statement as a Scholarly Defense
• Literature Synthesis: Moving Beyond the Summary toward Authority