Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research
General Guidelines for Student Support
This document outlines how graduate students are typically funded with the Department, and what sources of temporary financial support are available.
First Year
First year students are generally supported by Assistantships distributed by the Graduate School or Dean's Office. Which of these sources is used to support a new graduate student is completely transparent to the student, and both pay Step 1 stipends, and offer student health insurance and payment of student fees as benefits. All incoming students, funded by these mechanisms are assigned both teaching responsibilities and are expected to become actively involved in Research Rotations. The student is guaranteed a 12 months stipend regardless of the source. Technically, TA's from the Dean's Office are 10 month appointments running from September 1 to June 30, while RA's (from the Graduate School) are 12 month appointments running from September 1 to August 31.For this reason, it is vitally important that a student be matched with a permanent advisor, with funding available, before the end of June. The Department expects that students and faculty will work together towards this goal.
Second and Subsequent Years
Faculty are expected to support second year students from individual grants and contracts. Hence, it is very important that the number of new students requested by faculty, and subsequently admitted to the Graduate Program, be closely matched by available funding. However, the number of admissions and funding invariably fluctuates, and the Department is committed to full funding of all its existing students if at all possible.