Grants and Writing Resources for West Virginia University

In April 2026, four WVU undergraduates were named Goldwater Scholars, the first time the university has had four recipients of the award. Three are juniors and one is a sophomore. One uses machine learning to predict solar efficiency from crystal structure, and another pairs LiDAR with field measurements to study how forests store carbon. The other two work on metabolic biomarkers of chronic disease and on robots that read terrain by combining camera and LiDAR data. The scholarship pays up to $7,500 a year.

Apprenticeships, SURE and Three Symposia

The Office of Undergraduate Research runs two programs with faculty mentors. The Research Apprenticeship Program teaches the fundamentals of conducting research. The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience, or SURE, is for students who plan on graduate study and runs eight weeks of full-time summer research.

Students can present at three undergraduate research symposia a year: summer, fall and spring.

Money for Conference Travel

An undergraduate with an accepted abstract can ask the Office of Undergraduate Research for travel support to present at a regional or national conference, NCUR included. The award covers registration and travel. Applicants send a detailed budget and a reference letter from their mentor, and the office distributes funds until they are gone.

Some colleges fund student research as well. The Eberly College of Arts and Sciences runs an Academic Enrichment Program whose awards go to the student's account. Statler College has Research Trust Funds for research or for conference travel to present results, and the College of Creative Arts offers full-time majors a Student Travel Grant once per academic year.

National Scholarships and Doctoral Fellowships

Founded in 2006, the ASPIRE Office works with students on applications for nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships, from the Truman and Fulbright to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and on applications to graduate and professional school. Its running count lists 25 Rhodes Scholars, 27 Truman Scholars and 82 Fulbright Scholars from WVU. A student must first win the university's nomination to apply for the Goldwater Scholarship.

Incoming doctoral students reach the university fellowships through nomination by faculty or departments. The Ruby Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship, for STEM fields, pays a $34,000 annual stipend for up to three years, along with a tuition waiver, university fees, graduate health insurance and up to $2,000 a year for professional development travel. WVU names up to four new Ruby fellows a year. The Arlen G. and Louise Stone Swiger Fellowship goes to incoming Ph.D. students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. For students entering in fall 2025, it paid a $25,000 annual stipend for up to three years, with a tuition waiver, university fees and graduate health insurance. The Swiger and STEM fellowships follow the same nomination process.

Prizes, Calliope and the Three Minute Thesis

The English Department holds writing contests for undergraduates and graduate students. The James Paul Brawner Expository Writing Contest has undergraduate, graduate and 102/103 divisions. The Waitman Barbe Creative Writing Award is an undergraduate award with fiction, nonfiction and poetry categories, and the Jon Scott Nelson awards go to first-year writers, including papers from English 101. An undergraduate who grew up in Appalachia can enter the Appalachian Writing Award with work set in the region. The winner gets a scholarship to the West Virginia Writers' Workshop in Morgantown. The department's 2025-26 awards list names the contests and scholarships for that year.

Calliope is WVU's undergraduate literary journal, open to undergraduates in any major. It publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction and visual art. A student editor-in-chief runs it with a faculty adviser, and the 2026 issue is Volume 38. For that issue, students could send up to three poems, two prose pieces and five visual works. Poems could run to 500 words and prose to 3,000.

Graduate students can enter the Three Minute Thesis competition and present their research in three minutes with one slide. In 2025 the Office of Graduate Education and Life named ten doctoral finalists, who competed for $1,000 for first place, $750 for second and $500 for third. A People's Choice Award paid $250.

The Eberly Writing Studio

Any WVU student can book a one-on-one session with a trained peer consultant at the Eberly Writing Studio in Colson Hall, room G02. Consultants take writing and speaking projects of any size, from note-taking and pre-writing to revision strategies, editing and presentation technique. Sessions meet in person or over Zoom.

Master's and doctoral students have the Graduate Writing Studio, with consultations available until graduation. It also holds writing groups, retreats and workshops during the year.

Submitting a Thesis or Dissertation

Dissertations, theses, problem reports and MFA theses go to the Research Repository @ WVU through the WVU Libraries ETD submission process. The ETD office reviews each submission, usually within five business days, and emails a list if revisions are needed. Approval goes by email to the student, the committee chair and the college graduate coordinator. The work is published after graduation is confirmed.

Open access is the default. A one-year or permanent embargo requires a signed form and a reason, and an MFA creative writing thesis can be limited to campus access for up to five years. The base ETD fee also covers traditional publishing through ProQuest. Finished work appears in the repository's Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection.

Before a thesis or dissertation goes to the ETD office, or a paper goes to a professor, our editors can check it for grammar, consistency and format. See our West Virginia University dissertation and thesis editing and West Virginia University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• The Secret to Better Grades: Starting Your Writing Process Early
• The Results Chapter: Presenting Data with Forensic Clarity
• ProQuest Readiness: The Final Mechanical Audit