Generally speaking, financial awards labeled ‘fellowships’ enable students to work on their degree requirements without other duties. A fellowship is more or less the graduate equivalent of an undergraduate scholarship.

Assistantships are financial support that does have duties beyond working toward the degree; they are a kind of employment that requires a certain number of part time hours per week.

At Indiana University, there are four kinds of SAAs:

1. Research assistantships give you the opportunity to work for a faculty member and help them with their research project.
2. Graduate assistantships are assigned duties such as laboratory assistant, newsletter editor, or database entry for a museum collection.
3. Associate instructorships offer the opportunity to gain teaching experience either as a grader for a Professor or as an assistant who also teaches discussion sections for a course. More advanced graduate students who are hired as Associate Instructors may have the opportunity to design a course and to be a course instructor.
4. A faculty assistant performs non-teaching services.

A fee remission or fee scholarship is financial aid that covers most of the cost of your tuition. Funds are credited directly to your financial account at Indiana University; this account is called your ‘bursar account.’ Only certain Fellowships include a fee scholarship and only some of the Student Academic Appointments will come with a fee remission.

For tuition information please go to Office of the Bursar, as tuition and campus related fees are subject to change.

Your application for admission is also your application for nearly all university and departmental assistantships and fellowships. That means that by submitting your application materials you’re in the queue for this funding.

Educational Opportunity Fellowship: The EOF is meant to aid promising first-generation college graduates who may not fare well in conventional competition for graduate fellowships to attend graduate school. The awards are relatively small, but may be important as part of a financial aid package. This is a one-year award, but is renewable one time. Applications are due mid-January. For instructions, see Educational Opportunity Fellowship.

Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS): These fellowships provide graduate students with an academic year stipend similar to and often greater than an anthropology AI-ship, plus maximum tuition award of 12 credit hours per semester. They also provide automatic enrollment in the graduate student health insurance plan with the cost of the student premium paid by the fellowship. FLAS fellowships are awarded to individuals who will be studying a language spoken in that region of the world that is associated with a particular areas studies center. Students apply for a FLAS directly through one of the area centers. Go to https://hls.indiana.edu/academics/scholarships/flas.html for further information. You’ll find more information on the FLAS later in this FAQ.

Students who have M.A. degrees in fields other than anthropology or whose undergraduate major was outside anthropology may have skills that qualify them for teaching positions in departments other than anthropology; these students should contact the appropriate department.

Your application for admission serves as your application for several other awards, including the Graduate Scholars Fellowship, which supports outstanding students who are members of underrepresented groups, the Adam W. Herbert Graduate Fellowship, which supports graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and the Ronald E. McNair Graduate Fellowship, which is for outstanding McNair Scholars entering Ph.D. or M.F.A. programs at Indiana University, Bloomington. If you are a McNair Scholar you must mention this on your application.

Although most financial assistance other than that applied for with your application to graduate school is directed at students beyond their first year in grad school, you will want to look closely at the Funding Opportunities page.

We suggest that you apply for financial aid (go to the OSFA web site) as this will probably qualify you for graduate work study assistantships available around campus. Some of these GWS positions carry a tuition fee remission. If you fill out a FASFA form with the Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) you may be declared eligible for hire for a Graduate Work Study assistantship.

Please inform the faculty with which you intend to study that you are in need of financial assistance. Most of our faculty are associated with other campus offices, departments, museums, research institutes and centers which may have funding to offer you.

There are two important outside fellowships that first-year and continuing students can apply for. Both are extremely competitive, but both are very generous. NSF graduate fellowships supports outstanding graduate students and strongly encourages under-represented populations, including women, under-represented racial and ethnic minorities, and persons with disabilities. NSFs provide three years of support, including a very generous annual stipend. The Jacob Javitz fellowship is directed at students of superior academic ability—selected on the basis of demonstrated achievement, financial need, and exceptional promise. The Javits provides full support for four years.

These are available through area studies centers on campus. Go to https://hls.indiana.edu/academics/scholarships/flas.html to find more information.

No, for a Foreign Language Area Studies fellowship you are required to take language classes, not to teach them.

There are multiple centers on campus that give out these awards. Please take a look at: https://hls.indiana.edu/student-life/scholarships/flas.html. Scroll all the way down to find a list of these centers’ contact information. Letters of recommendation should be sent directly to these FLAS centers.

As a department, we have committed to providing funding to all admitted students. In recent years, we have been able to fund all new admits through a combination of sources, including assistantships and fellowships. In addition, every year we provide “top-up” fellowships to students in their first year of study. However, we highly encourage all applicants to apply for external awards (NSF GRFP, home country awards, etc.) in order to supplement and (sometimes) extend their funding opportunities.

It is certainly not required. You may wish to meet with faculty and graduate students before you apply to help you decide whether Indiana University is right for you. Or you may want to meet faculty and students when deciding whether to accept an offer for admission. Students say they find a visit helpful.

We usually host a recruitment visit for admitted Ph.D. students in late February or March of each year. Other than that, visits are informal. If you would like to schedule a visit, we would suggest that you work directly with faculty members with whom you might like to work. They will be able to schedule an appointment with you, and perhaps suggest others that might be good for you to meet. You should also feel free to schedule an appointment with the Director of Graduate Studies, Sara Friedman at slfriedm@iu.edu.

The President of the Anthropology Graduate Student Association (AGSA) for this academic year (2022-2023) is Elizabeth Coggeshall. Her email is ecogges@iu.edu. Elizabeth will be able to answer questions you may have, and she can also direct you to another graduate student with similar interests to your own.

Our average for students who continue straight through to their degree is 7.2 years. A student who meets all of our target deadlines can complete the degree in five years. Students who start the program with a definite idea of their dissertation topic will finish more quickly. Entering with competence in a foreign language can also decrease time to degree.

Our placement rate for Ph.D. students is 93.25%. Such jobs include higher education faculty positions (both non-tenure track and tenure track), post-doctoral research appointments, and professional-administrative positions of various kinds. Of faculty positions, our graduates often take positions in non-anthropology departments, including public health, marketing, pathology, medical sciences, osteopathic medicine, area studies programs, linguistics, religious studies, and gender studies. A substantial number of our graduates work in government and industry, mostly in research, management, and marketing.

Like Ph.D. students, M.A. students are expected to focus on one of the anthropological subfields, Social Cultural, Biological, Linguistic Anthropology, or Archaeology, and they are required to take at least one course in three of the four subfields.

The Department of Anthropology is located in the Student Building which is on the western edge of campus.

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