Funding

Financial Assistance/Teaching Opportunities

The Department disposes of ca. 18 teaching assistants each year for the support of graduate students in the Ph.D. program. It usually dedicates ca. 4 or 5 of these to entering students, leaving ca. 13-14 for the support of continuing students. These awards, which notionally require 20 hours of work per week, carry a stipend of $ 12,400 and provide both a full tuition scholarship and medical insurance. They are renewable for four years provided the student demonstrates satisfactory progress in the program. The Department is sometimes able to extend this support for a fifth year for students who are making good progress towards the completion of the Ph.D.

Applicants to the PhD program with a particularly strong record (including conspicuously high GRE scores and/or a high undergraduate grade point average) can be nominated by the Department for a Presidential Fellowship or a Dean's Scholarship. These awards, which are offered competitively at the University and College levels, provide supplements of $ 6,000 and $ 4,000, respectively, to the base teaching assistantship stipend, for a combined stipend of either $ 18,400 or $16,400. The Department has enjoyed considerable success in recent years, with nearly all of its nominees securing one or the other of these two awards.

Several other graduate fellowships are offered by the University at Buffalo for which an applicant may be eligible.

University at Buffalo graduate fellowship programs

Students entering the program with a teaching assistantship are usually assigned to assist in World Civilization 1. Their duties typically include conducting three 50-minute discussion sections with ca. 25 students per week, delivering occasional lectures to the entire class, and assisting with the composition and grading of exams. Advanced teaching assistants are usually provided the opportunity to teach one or more courses on their own during their third and/or fourth year of service. The courses regularly assigned to advanced teaching assistants include Latin 101 and 102, Women in the Ancient World, Ancient Sports, Introduction to Classical Archaeology, Heroes, and Medical Terminology.

As many as five teaching assignments are also available for graduate students (including students in the M.A. program) for the June and July summer sessions. These currently carry a salary of $2000-$2200. The courses regularly taught during these sessions include Latin 101 and 102, Myth and Religion in the Ancient World, Heroes, and Medical Terminology.

Graduate students serving as sole instructors are supervised by Classics Department faculty.

Policy on Faculty Supervision of Graduate Instructors

Students who have reached the dissertation stage of the program are eligible to apply to the College of Arts and Sciences for a Dissertation Fellowship. These awards provide $4,000 of support for one academic year.

College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowships

The College of Arts and Sciences also sometimes sponsors programs that provide financial or other support for students at the dissertation stage.

Humanities Institute Initiatives and Support

The Department provides modest amounts of travel funding to graduate students on an "as available" basis to help with the expenses involved in interviewing for jobs and making presentations at the AIA and APA meetings, making presentations at regional conferences, undertaking dissertation research, and participation in archaeological field projects.

Policy for the Awarding of Financial Support for Graduate Student Research Activities and Job Hunting

Applying for Funding:

Each year there will be two deadlines for submissions of applications for funding, one during the fall semester (November 1) and one during the spring semester (April 1). In order to be considered for funding student must submit a document to the Department Chair that includes the following information:

  1. Applicant's name
  2. Activity for which funding is being requested (nature, dates)
  3. Projected budget for activity
  4. Amount of funding requested from Department of Classics
  5. Other sources of funding applied for or to be applied for to help cover costs of activity in question (e.g., GSA, AIA traveling fellowship, etc) (source, application/notification date, amount)
  6. Funding previously obtained from Department of Classics for research activities (amount, date, activity)

For Scholarship and Fellowship information, please browse the Graduate School Scholarships and Fellowships page.

To learn more about Jobs and Assistantships for UB Graduate students, visit the Jobs and Assistantships for Graduate students page.

Additional Financial Aid information is available at the Graduate School website.

Typical Costs

For an estimated cost of attending Graduate School at UB, please follow this link to the Student Response Center website.