Graduate Teaching Support and Financial Information
Teaching Opportunities for Graduate Students
At Penn State teaching is considered a part of a student's education and professional training. Without overdoing it--graduate assistants are never required to teach more than five courses over four semesters (two years)--we take pains to ensure that graduate students get substantial and varied teaching assignments, that they learn to teach new courses under the direction of experienced, award-winning faculty, and that they leave Penn State as accomplished teachers.
When graduate students join the department, they typically are assigned to English 15, our first-year course in rhetoric and composition. In their second and third years, graduate students are invited to try another course in the Composition Program, if they wish--Basic Writing, Honors Composition and Rhetoric, tutoring in the Writing Center, Technical Writing, Business Writing, or Writing in the Humanities. M.F.A. students have the opportunity to teach English 50: Introduction to Creative Writing. After passing comprehensive exams, doctoral students are guaranteed an opportunity to teach in our Undergraduate Studies Program, nearly always a course or courses closely related to their fields of expertise--e.g., surveys of American and British literature, specialty courses like American Comedy or Shakespeare, or introductory courses in fiction, poetry, or drama. Doctoral students typically graduate after having had a chance to teach 3-5 different courses, and after having had a chance to polish these courses by teaching them more than once.
Because the culture of the English Department at Penn State encourages outstanding teaching, many graduate students find themselves being recognized by the university for their accomplishments as teachers. College of Liberal Arts Graduate Student Teaching Awards regularly go to members of the English Department, and almost every year a person from English earns one of the fifteen university-wide teaching awards for graduate students as well. The Leonhard Center Technical Writing Initiative recognizes with fellowships those graduate students with a special interest in technical communications pedagogy. And the English Department annually awards to its own graduate students the Nancy Lowe Teaching Award.
T he Department of English offers approximately 100 fellowships and teaching assistantships, awarded on a competitive basis, as well as research assistantships. The department funds travel to conferences for graduate students, and various resources exist to help support the cost of research travel expenses. Additionally, the department nominates eligible candidates for the College of Liberal Arts travel and research grants and Edwin Erle Sparks Fellowships in the Humanities, as well as Graduate School fellowships. In the rare instance that a graduate student is admitted without direct funding, or in the case of graduate students who wish to secure support outside the program, numerous opportunities exist throughout the university (such as graderships, tutoring, proctoring, and course instruction) and in the local community (editorships, journalistic/technical writing positions, etc.).
