Grants and Writing Resources for Virginia Commonwealth University

On July 12 the Sunday New York Times ran a crossword by a doctoral student in the VCU School of Education. "Slight Adjustments" has 138 clues and a theme of puns, with italicized clues that hint at slights and insults. Two more of the student's puzzles have been accepted, and the first is set to run early next year.

A Paid Summer of Research

The Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship Summer Fellowship pays the student a $1,500 stipend and gives the faculty mentor $500 for project expenses or professional development. Full-time undergraduates with at least one academic year left before graduation can apply. The mentor co-writes the proposal, which runs up to five double-spaced pages, and the student adds a personal statement of up to two.

Fellows plan on 20 to 30 hours of work a week. They write three short reflections over the summer and present at the undergraduate poster symposium the next spring.

Posters, Launch Awards and Auctus

The VCU Poster Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity is held each year during VCU Research Weeks and regularly draws more than 300 student presenters. The VCU Launch Awards go to outstanding posters by first- and second-year students, and winners are put in touch with conferences, publications, internships, grants and fellowships. The Honors College and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program run the awards with Auctus and the National Scholarship Office.

Auctus: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creativity is student-run and peer-reviewed. It takes research articles, technical papers and expository articles from VCU undergraduates in any discipline, along with creative writing, visual art, music, film and multimedia work.

Graduate Funding and Thesis Prizes

Each year the Graduate School gives the Distinguished Dissertation and Outstanding Master's Thesis awards in four fields: life sciences; social sciences, business and education; math, physical sciences and engineering; and humanities and fine arts. A non-traditional category covers capstone and project work. In the 2025 cycle each award carried $500 and a certificate. Deans nominate work accepted in the past academic year, and a faculty committee judges methodology, quality and significance to the discipline. Broad-field dissertation winners can be put forward for the Council of Graduate Schools/ProQuest competition, and thesis winners for the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools competition.

Criteria and amounts for teaching and research assistantships vary by department. The Graduate School's funding page also lists the COVES Fellowship, which places graduate students and postdocs for 12 weeks as science advisors in Virginia legislative offices, agencies, companies or nonprofits.

Writing Center and the ETD

Student consultants at the VCU Writing Center work with currently enrolled students at any stage, from brainstorming to a final draft, in Room 4203 of the Academic Learning Commons or over Zoom. The center also runs workshops for undergraduates and graduate students.

The thesis or dissertation committee approves style and format. The Graduate School's electronic thesis and dissertation page supplies sample templates and the ETD approval form, which is submitted through DocuSign. Finished work is published in VCU Scholars Compass, and since fall 2023 students may embargo it for two years.

At VCU the committee signs off on style and format, so a dissertation should reach the defense clean; our editors can give it, or an Auctus article, a final edit for grammar, consistency and format. See our Virginia Commonwealth University dissertation and thesis editing and Virginia Commonwealth University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write an Argumentative Essay: Beyond For and Against
• Methodology Chapter Secrets: Building the Architecture of Your Argument
• From Dissertation to Publication: The Final Scholarly Synthesis