The vast majority of American Studies students have been employed as teaching assistants in their departmental homes. Assistantships, like university fellowships are awarded competitively on the basis of academic excellence. While renewal of the assistantship is not automatic, most students who make excellent progress in their programs and who perform well in the classroom are renewed. M.A. students may have the teaching assistantship renewed for one year. Ph.D. students may have the teaching assistantship renewed for three to four years, depending on budgetary considerations and varying according to the major field.
Support takes other forms as well.
Students who present scholarly papers at regional or national professional meetings receive small travel grants to defray some of their expenses. American Studies also subsidizes travel to research collections with modest grants. Each year, graduate students across the university compete for Purdue Research Foundation Summer Grants to conduct research or to prepare for exams, and this year, four American Studies students received such support. The majority of American Studies students take full advantage of the academic support they find for their work. Academic advisors make time to discuss students' interests and current research and to guide students to pertinent scholarship or archival collections.