Graduate Studies Scholarships/GTAs

Each year, the SIAS offers two or three 0.5 FTE Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTA). Responsibilities include twenty (20) hours per week to the School of International and Area Studies. The specific assignments will be made at the beginning of the fall semester and will help support the teaching mission of the School.

The GTA benefits include:

1. A stipend paid during the term of appointment, which is end of August thru middle of May.
2. SIAS also applies on the student's behalf a Qualified Graduate Assistant Tuition Waiver. This award includes a seven (7) hour resident tuition waiver and a nine (9) hour full nonresident tuition waiver for the Fall and Spring semesters, and a waiver for the basic student health insurance plan.

The conditions to receive the award are:

1. Devote twenty hours per week to your GTA assignment.
2. Maintain an enrollment of at least nine (9) credit hours per semester.
3. Maintain good standing in the Graduate College and satisfactory progress towards completion of your degree requirements. For the MA in International Studies, enrollment in nine (9) hours per semester is considered satisfactory progress towards the degree.
4. Paricipate in a training program for Graduate Teaching Assistants, organized by the Instructional Development Program. This program takes place the week before the beginning of classes.
5. This award is intended for the support of a full time student in the School of International and Area Studies. Any employment in addition to this Assistantship is incompatible with this intent.
   
   

If you are interested in this opportunity for the Fall semester, please indicate as much in a letter of application. Deadline is February 15. New students as well as current students may apply. The selection of the award recipient will be based on a combination of prior academic achievement, GRE test scores, strong letters of recommendation, and the applicant's statement of purpose.

The School of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma announces a contest for the best paper that addresses any aspect of conflict resolution, affecting any country that borders the Mediterranean Sea. Any OU graduate or undergraduate student is eligible to compete for the award. Submissions can be prepared especially for this competition, or they can be based on term papers, Honors research projects, or graduate theses.

This award is named for Thomas W. Adams, a former officer in the US State Department who has published extensively on the conflict between Turks and Greeks on the island of Cyprus.

Submission Guidelines:
Submissions should be at least 2500 words in length. They should be typed, double-spaced and include a complete bibliography of cited works. Submissions are due no later than 15 April 2009. Awards will be announced 1 May 2009. All submissions will be evaluated by a committee of faculty. The award recipient will receive $750.00 and a plaque commemorating their accomplishment.

For questions or inquiries, please contact Dr. Mitchell Smith, Dale Hall Tower 205, mps@ou.edu.

This program, also known as the National Security Education Program (NSEP) enables U.S. graduate or undergraduate students to pursue overseas specialization in area and language study and was created by then Senator David L. Boren in 1991. Specifically, Boren Scholarships (for undergraduate students) and Fellowships (for graduate students) provide financial support to study languages, cultures, and world regions that are deemed critical to U.S. national security but are less frequently studied by U.S. students. Areas of the world that are never eligible for the NSEP are Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and languages such as Spanish, French, German, etc.

While language focus is always changing, examples of recently awarded language programs have been in Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. All participating students must be concurrently participating in an academic program at the time of participation as an NSEP scholar. Limited to U.S. citizens, this program has a federal government service agreement attached to the award and would require work by the recipient at an approved federal position after completion.

For further information about this program and an exhaustive list of focused languages and service sites, please go to this website: www.borenawards.org.

Also, please feel free to contact the OU campus representative for NSEP: Jack Hobson, jhobson@ou.edu.