Graduate Fellowship Needs
Top quality graduate students are essential for a productive university research program. The best way to build the reputation of Auburn's Civil Engineering program is to graduate quality Ph.D. students, who have degrees from other universities, and who take faculty positions at other universities. Graduating students first requires recruiting students with competitive financial aid packages. Having fellowships is an important part of recruiting. Typical research contracts in civil engineering last one and a half to two years. Graduating a Ph.D. student typically requires three and a half years. So, there is often one and a half years when a Ph.D. student must be supported by a fellowship, teaching assistantship, or means other than the dissertation research project. Having a stable pool of fellowship funds will enable the Department to be aggressive in recruiting top students by making offers of financial support in anticipation of future research awards that appear reasonably certain.
Civil Engineering has 7 graduate student fellowships that average a total of approximately $10K per year. The size of these fellowships make them attractive as supplements to research funds for attracting top students into the master's degree programs. The target is to increase the available funds to $70K per year. The additional $60K per year will allow the Department to continuously have three Ph.D. students in the program supported by a fellowship of $20K per year. The goal is to recruit one or two new Ph.D. students each year in addition to the numbers already recruited. After approximately one and a half years, the students receiving the fellowships will be supported by external research funds.
