Additional departmental funds are earmarked for other graduate student activities. First and second year students may apply for summer research funds to conduct the preliminary fieldwork that is often crucial to setting up dissertation projects. Among the students who won summer research funds in 1995 were some traveling as far as South Africa, India, and Eritrea. Travel funds are also available for students to help cover the costs of attending national conferences at which students are presenting research papers. Overall, the goal of the department is to provide comfortable support so that productive students can progress through the program in timely fashion without the distraction of having to hold outside jobs.
Further information is available on external funding for graduate students .