Graduate Student Funding

The Overall Picture:

Funding for graduate students comes from a variety of sources both external and internal to the University. External sources include the federal and provincial governments, Canadian foundations, hospitals, industry, as well as international sources of support.

Internal to the University, funding comes in the following various forms: fellowships, awards, travel funds (recruiting, McGill Majors, Alma Mater funds), departmental and faculty funding to student research assistants, graduate assistants and teaching assistants, as well as money paid directly from professors' grants to their students. The amounts in each category for 1996-1997 appear below:

External Funding Sources
Canadian Gov't.	$5,575,512
Other Cdn. (industry, hospitals, foundations)	$1,716,791
Que. Gov't.	$4,381,698
Other Provinces	$66,816
Int'l. Sources	$2,906,091
TOTAL External	$14,646,908

Internal Funding Sources
FGSR (Majors, Recruiting, Alma Mater, etc.)	$2,605,553
Fac./Dept. (RA, GA, TA combined)	$6,459,327
Professors' Grants	$7,337,245
TOTAL Internal	$16,402,125

As part of a five-year student funding plan, the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (FGSR) is seeking information on comparative figures from other universities.

Recruiting Fellowships

Three years ago, through a generous donation by the Max Stern Foundation, McGill initiated a series of recruiting fellowships. In the beginning, these were three-year renewable fellowships worth $14,000. The money for them was not endowed, but directly funded on an annual basis. Two years ago, the decision was made to convert the remaining Max Stern funds from direct annual funding to an endowment. This has restricted funding to a much smaller number of fellowships.

This year 12 will be offered, each for one year only. They are assigned to departments based on a formula that takes into account the amount of fellowships money and the quantity of graduate students in any given unit. Comparative figures for recruiting fellowships from other Canadian universities are sobering. The University of Toronto has 50 endowed Connaught fellowships worth $11,000, renewable for three years. The University of Alberta has 60 endowed fellowships worth $13,000, renewable for three years.

Major Fellowships

The FGSR awards approximately 80 McGill Major fellowships each year, many of which are renewable. They range in size from $10,000-$15,000. They are only available to students who are already enrolled at McGill. Selection is done in conjunction with applications for the research council fellowships.

Dissertation and Top-Up Awards

A relatively new category of funding comprises awards worth $5,000-$6,000. These are for completion of dissertations and for "topping-up" external fellowships.

Alma Mater Funds

These travel funds are available three times a year to graduate students who are presenting papers at conferences. This past winter, FGSR and the Post-Graduate Students' Society have decided to merge their travel funds and revise the criteria for acceptability to try to encompass as wide a range of students as possible. In the winter contest, all applicants were funded. Deadline for the spring contest is April 15, 1998.

The Future

FGSR is working on a Five-Year Student Funding Plan to document and augment graduate student funding. As part of that plan, the FGSR Council recently passed a resolution to "prioritize raising funds for fellowships through a special Development campaign to endow graduate student support. This support will be distributed in appropriate increments by the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research."

One of the concepts being investigated is the distribution of funds to departments in increments of approximately $5,000 to be used in a variety of ways decided upon by the departments. For instance, three increments might be combined into a recruiting fellowship or single increments could be used as top-up or dissertation completion awards. In this way, departments could accommodate the specific and changing needs of their student groups.

In addition to the work underway in the FGSR, Vice-Principal Chan has formed a Task Force on Fellowships and Scholarships that will report to the Budget Planning Group on McGill's status and needs. Martha Crago is representing FGSR on that task force. These initiatives are responses to the societal context of student indebtedness in general, and to the needs of attracting and supporting McGill students in particular.