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Department of Sociology Awards


Graduate Student Travel Grants


Graduate students are eligible for funding for conference travel from two sources annually: the department and the Graduate School. In addition, the United Government of Graduate Students also offers travel grants, for which you are eligible only once during your tenure at CU.

For departmental & Graduate School funding, you must be presenting a paper at the conference.

Funding cycles and amounts differ for these sources. Departmental funds generally become available in mid-October. We distribute $400 per student. We generally approve the funds as soon as we receive the applications. Students are eligible to apply only once per academic year. Chuck Moseley of the Financial Services Center handles reimbursements, after the conference has occurred. Unlike the Graduate School, we do fund co-authored paper presentations, provide that you are doing the presentation (or co-presenting).

The Graduate School distributes funds by fiscal year (July 1-June 30) instead of academic year. The Graduate School provides $300 for domestic conferences and $500 for international conferences. Students applying for Graduate School funds must first submit applications through the department (to the GPA). We are allowed to put forward ten applications to the Graduate School, thus we collect applications and submit them as a batch.

Departmental Travel Grants
Click here for the application

Graduate School Student Travel Grants
Click here for the application

The Graduate School offers partial funding for graduate students to present research findings at meetings or conferences outside Colorado. The Graduate School provides a travel grant of $300 for domestic conferences and $500 for international conferences. Funds will be applied directly to the student's tuition account. If the account balance is zero, a refund direct deposit will be disbursed by the Bursar's Office of Financial Aid. The grant is contingent on account funding by the Graduate School.

    Eligibility Requirements: The applicant must be a full-time graduate student in good standing.
  • The student must be traveling to a meeting or conference to present his/her own work or work on which he/she is the primary author.
  • The student must be the sole presenter of the work.
  • The student may receive funds from the Graduate School for travel only once per fiscal year (July 1 through June 30).
  • A student receiving funding from an outside source (fellowship, stipend, scholarship, grant, departmental travel grant) is not eligible.
  • Each department may submit 10 applications annually for consideration.
United Government of Graduate Students Travel Grants

The UGGS funding cycle is fall & spring. Note that you can only receive UGGS funding once during your tenure as a graduate student at CU. Click here for information and a link to the application.

 

Awards for Graduate Student Scholarship and Teaching

The Department of Sociology, through the Graduate Committee, offers four annual awards for Graduate Student Scholarship and Teaching. Deadline for submission of materials is announced each spring. The applications are evaluated by committees of two faculty and one graduate student, all members of the Graduate Committee.

1. Out-of-Pocket Dissertation Expenses: $1,000 (may be divided between two students). This Award will be given to a student to assist with future (not past) out-of-pocket dissertation expenses, such as (but not restricted to) data gathering travel, transcription, photocopying, postage for questionnaires, purchase of secondary data, printing costs, purchase of equipment for audio or video recording. No travel to professional conferences will be covered. Note that no cash will be awarded directly to the student. The Department will set up a research account from which the student can be reimbursed for documented expenses (original receipts required). Each applicant should submit a 750-word description of the dissertation, with a statement of whether or not the dissertation has been approved by the student's committee, plus a one-page single spaced outline of what expenses are anticipated. Proposals not yet defended or students who have not formed committees will lose points. The applications will be evaluated on the quality and significance of the project as well as budget justification and the potential for the Award to have an impact on the quality of the dissertation. Satisfactory progress toward completion of the degree also counts.

2010/11 Jesse Smith
2009/10 - Devon Thacker
2008/09 - Christie Sennott
2007/08 - Allison Hicks
2006/07- Tara Opsal
2005/06 - Jarron Saint Onge
2004/05 - Jennifer Snook
2003/04 - Keri Brandt and Brian Klocke
2002/03 - William Rocque
2001/02 - Patrick Gillham and Linda Ramos


2. Outstanding Research paper: $500.00, which goes to the student’s account. Papers should be a maximum of 5,000 words (approximately 25 pages) plus citations, ASR format, prepared for blind reviews. Co-authored papers, published papers, or papers submitted for publication are NOT eligible. One submission per person.

2010/11 - Naghme Naseri
2009/10 - Patrick O'Brien
2008/09 - Justin Denney
2007/08 - Marc Eaton
2006/07 - Colter Ellis
2005/06 - Marshall Smith
2004/05 - Emmanuel David
2003/04 - Jeannette Sutton
2002/03 - Lori Peek
2001/02 - Patrick Gillham

3. Ralph and Barbara Dakin Award: This cash award (usually $1,000) was made possible by an endowed gift to the Department by Ralph Dakin (who received his Ph.D. from this Department in 1958) and his spouse. The purpose of the award is to recognize "outstanding scholarship that contributes to peace, inter-cultural understanding, resolution of conflict, or amelioration of important social problems." The Award is made by the Faculty, Department of Sociology. Any member of the faculty can nominate a student. Students wishing to nominate themselves or another student should ask a member of the faculty to write the nomination letter. To nominate a student, please submit a letter (and any supporting materials) to the graduate committee. All graduate students who have been enrolled in our program for at least two years, or former students who completed their Ph.D.s within the last three years, are eligible.

2009/10 - Devon Thacker
2008/09 - Liz Morningstar
2007/08 - Eric Bonds
2006/06 - Brian Klocke
2005/06 - Duke Austin
2004/05 - Jill Williams
2003/04 - Hillary Potter
2002/03 - Marci L. Eads
2001/02 - Ellis Jones, Ross Haenfler and Brett Johnson


4. GTPI Award: Given each fall to a student with outstanding FCQs and GPA (based on previous academic year’s records) in the amount of $1000. The winner is recognized at the Department’s annual fall meeting, and his or her name is added to a plaque in the Department’s office. This is not the same as the Graduate School's GPTI Award.  

2010/11 - Zek Valkyrie
2009/10 - Kristina Kahl
2008/09 - Angel Hoekstra
2007/08 - Courtney McDonald
2005/06 - Ali Hatch
2004/05 - Katherine Sirles
2003/04 - Robert Duran
2002/03 - Brett Johnson
2001/02 - Jeffrey London

General Awards:

Betsy Moen Award: Elizabeth “Betsy” Moen Mathiot, was an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1976 to 1993. She died in Madurai, India, on March 11, 1993, leaving a unique legacy of scholarship and social action. Betsy’s notion of an ideal and more useful university education was one that encourages and facilitates students’ becoming involved in the world and being idealistically generous in that involvement; one that does not just talk, muse, analyze, dissect, criticize, and pine from a distance about the world, but one that gets into the world, into the complexity and messiness of it and concretely contributes to it at the same time that one studies it; an education that promotes, for example, service learning, volunteering, internships, and the first-hand study of social issues, social contexts, and social structures.

In an effort to recognize and celebrate others whose work is similar in spirit to Dr. Moen’s, the Feminist Scholars in Sociology* – of which Betsy was a member – is taking nominations for the 2006 Walk the Talk Award. Nominees may be faculty, staff, graduate students, or undergraduate students doing sociological work (although they need not be working in the Department of Sociology). Nominees should be self-identified feminists seeking to improve the lives of women through their research, activism, and/or teaching. You may nominate yourself or someone else to receive this recognition (which includes a $500 cash award). Faculty or staff may be honored with the award; however only students of the University of Colorado at Boulder may be given the cash award.

Application Process: The nominator must complete the application form (MS Word Format) and include a statement from the nominee. The nominee must also include a statement explaining how the award money will be used. All application material should be returned to Tara Opsal’s mailbox in the Department of Sociology main office, Ketchum 218, or mail the nomination to Tara Opsal, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, 327 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0327. Nominations must be in hard copy form – e-mailed submissions will not be accepted. If you have questions, please contact . All application material is due FRIDAY, APRIL 7 TH.

*Feminist Scholars in Sociology is a collective of researchers and teachers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, interested in exploring, sharing, and supporting feminist theory, methodology, and activism.

2010/11 - Mary Robertson
2009/10 - Leith Lombas
2008/09 - Christie Sennott
2007/08 - Emmanuel David
2006/07 - Devon Thacker
2005/06 - Ali Hatch

 

Awards Available Outside the Department


The National Academies Fellowships Office of Policy & Global Affairs

The Fellowships Office (FO) of the National Academies administers predoctoral, postdoctoral, and senior fellowship awards on behalf of government and private/foundation sponsors; these fellowship awards play an important role in the career development of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and scholars for the academic, federal, industrial and international workforce. Current opportunities are available here.

Ford Foundation Dissertation Diversity Fellowships

Through its Fellowship Program, the Ford Foundation seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

    Eligibility to apply for a Ford fellowship is limited to:
  • All citizens or nationals of the United States regardless of race, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation,
  • Individuals with evidence of superior academic achievement (such as grade point average, class rank, honors or other designations),
  • Individuals committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level.

For information regarding level-specific eligibility requirements, stipends, and other program information for each of the three levels of the Fellowship program, click here.

The Udall Foundation Environmental Public Policy & Conflict Resolution Ph.D Fellowship

The Udall Foundation awards two one-year fellowships of up to $24,000 to doctoral candidates whose research concerns U.S. environmental public policy and/or environmental conflict resolution and who are entering their final year of writing the dissertation. For information click here.

Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Dissertation Fellowships

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation (HFG) welcomes proposals from any of the natural and social sciences and the humanities that promise to increase understanding of the causes, manifestations, and control of violence, aggression, and dominance. Highest priority is given to research that can increase understanding and amelioration of urgent problems of violence, aggression, and dominance in the modern world. Ten or more dissertation fellowships are awarded each year to individuals who will complete the writing of the dissertation within the award year. These fellowships of $15,000 each are designed to contribute to the support of the doctoral candidate to enable him or her to complete the thesis in a timely manner, and it is only appropriate to apply for support for the final year of Ph.D. work. Applications are evaluated in comparison with each other and not in competition with the postdoctoral research proposals. Applicants may be citizens of any country and studying at colleges or universities in any country. For information click here.

Social Science Research Council

The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) Program assists graduate students in preparing dissertation and funding proposals for research that will contribute to the development of interdisciplinary fields in the humanities and social sciences. We sponsor training workshops and summer research on fields that are selected through annual competitions. Pairs of senior faculty propose the fields and design the spring and fall training workshops. Students apply to participate in the workshops and carry out related summer research. Now in its fourth year, the program annually offers training in five fields to 60 graduate students. For information click here.

National Science Foundation: Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant Guidelines

Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants. For information click here.

Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program

This program provides fellowships to students of superior academic ability—selected on the basis of demonstrated achievement, financial need, and exceptional promise—to undertake study at the doctoral and Master of Fine Arts level in selected fields of arts, humanities, and social sciences. Click here for more information.

National Institute of Justice (PDF)

 

Funding Resources

The Graduate School lists a number of avenues to explore for students who are interested in seeking funding for their graduate education, including the Beverly Sears Grant, which provides small grants for research at the master's or doctoral level. For more information click here.