Grants and Writing Resources for Virginia Tech

A Virginia Tech freshman won the Introductory division at the 2026 Intercollegiate Dressage Association National Championships, held in April at the National Equestrian Center in St. Louis, and placed third in Introductory Individual. The School of Animal Sciences covered the meet in its report on the dressage team.

Research Grants for Undergraduates

Majors and minors in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences can apply for the CLAHS Undergraduate Research, Creative Scholarship, and Travel Expenses Grant. Working with a faculty mentor is a condition. The money covers research costs or travel to present or perform finished work, and the college's undergraduate research page points students to departmental research funds as well.

Conferences and Student Journals

Undergraduates show posters, papers and projects at the Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship Conference. The English Department hosts an Undergraduate Research and Writing Symposium, and the VT Summer Research Conference is free to any student doing summer research at Virginia Tech.

Three student journals publish undergraduate research. The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review, described on the history undergraduate research page, is run by graduate and undergraduate editors and accepts historical research written for an undergraduate course within the previous 12 months, from authors at any school. The English Department publishes Philologia once a year, and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Review prints original undergraduate work in those three fields.

Graduate School Fellowships

The Graduate School manages a long list of named fellowships and scholarships. Its Dr. W.D. Lowry Graduate Fellowship, for full-time students with financial need, lists a $17,000 stipend for Spring 2027 plus in-state tuition. Departments nominate final-year Ph.D. students for the David W. Francis & Lilian Francis Research Fellowship when their research emphasizes longer, safer and healthier lives.

Summer Cunningham Fellowships give dissertation support to Ph.D. students writing over the summer, with priority for those close to finishing. Researchers who need the History of Food & Drink collections, including the Peacock-Harper Culinary History Collection, can apply for a Peacock-Harper Culinary Collection Scholarship after meeting with a university archivist. Faculty or departments nominate students preparing for careers in higher education for the Dr. Aunt Peg Fellowship, which requires GRAD coursework or other transformative graduate education activities.

Writing Help and Electronic Theses

The Writing Center is on the second floor of Newman Library and is free to Virginia Tech undergraduates and graduate students. Coaches meet writers in person or online. For long projects, a writer sets goals with a graduate coach in a live session and can keep working with that coach on the same project through the semester. Online Power Hour sessions pair a check-in with sixty minutes of independent writing.

Virginia Tech has required online submission of theses and dissertations since January 1, 1997. The ETD program is a collaboration between the Graduate School and the University Libraries, the Graduate School's ETD Coaches answer formatting questions, and finished ETDs have been available in VTechWorks, the university's repository, since 2013.

A thesis bound for VTechWorks or an article bound for a student journal deserves one more careful read for grammar, consistency and format. Our Virginia Tech dissertation and thesis editing page explains how we work, and you can reach the editors at editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write a Literature Essay: Mastering Close Reading
• Literature Synthesis: Moving Beyond the Summary toward Authority
• Writing the Abstract and Title: First Impressions Matter