Public Policy and Public Affairs

Academic year
SPEA awards fellowships and a number of GA positions each academic year. These are determined by the Ph.D. in Public Affairs and Public Policy Admissions and Policy Committees. The types of awards available are listed below.

1. Fellowships are awarded to selected students for a period of anywhere from one to three years. Typically a fellowship provides a stipend and a fee remission for an academic year. Fellowship recipients must be enrolled for a minimum of eight (8) credit hours per semester.
   
   
   • The Rutledge Minority Pre-doctoral Fellowship is a merit-based award available to minority incoming doctoral students consisting of a one-year fellowship and two years of departmental graduate assistantship. The stipend is $14,000 per year and includes 12 credit hours fee remission per semester. Students must be nominated by SPEA and should contact Donna Pritchett for further information.  
   • The Educational Opportunity Fellowship (EOF) is a needs-based fellowship award for under-represented minority masters and doctoral students. Applicants must demonstrate need, be a U.S. citizen, and accepted to an IU graduate program. The award consists of $750 per semester and $350 for the summer and allows non-Indiana residents to pay in-state tuition for 12 credit hours per academic year semester. A student may receive the EOF a maximum of two times. Students must be nominated by SPEA for this award and should contact Donna Pritchett for further information.  
   • The Roy W. Shin Fellowship was established to honor Professor Emeritus Roy W. Shin. The fellowship supports doctoral students doing dissertation research in energy or environmental policy in northeast Asia and those who intend to pursue a career in teaching and research activities.
     Amount: up to $5,000
     Eligibility:
     
     • Doctoral doing dissertation research
     • Outstanding academic achievement
     • Preference is given to students doing research in energy or environmental policy in northeast Asia
     This year's application deadline for the Roy W. Shin Fellowship is 5:00 p.m., Friday, January 23, 2009.
2. Research Assistantships: With a research assistantship, a student will assist a faculty member with a research project. These positions often are funded through grants received by individual professors. The research conducted with the faculty member should be of interest to the student. For this reason, students often spend much more than 20 hours per week performing duties.
   
   Students in the Ph.D. programs in Public Affairs and in Public Policy are strongly encouraged to gain some instructional experience.
   
   Typically, doctoral students are assigned as an Associate Instructor (AI). An AI is the instructor of record and has primary responsibility for organization and delivery of a course. A doctoral student may design a topics course, usually given as V540 Topics in Environmental Affairs, or may take responsibility for a regular course offered either at the undergraduate or graduate level. Doctoral students should be aware that course scheduling is done six to eight months in advance and plan accordingly with their major advisor and the Program Office.
   
   *Students holding appointments as associate instructors, graduate assistants, or research assistants ordinarily must be registered for 9 credit hours during each full semester and 3 credit hours (4 credit hours in case of 4-credit courses) during the summer session to be considered full time. They may count work required by their appointments toward computation of full-time graduate work. Taking less than 12 credit hours per semester should be discussed with the Chair of the student’s Advisory or Research Committee.
   
   The IU Bloomington Career Development Center provides information about both off-campus and on-campus employment.