Policy on graduate student funding
Department of Geography Graduate Program
The Department of Geography has various resources at its disposal to support thesis-based graduate students. These include funds that are made available to the Department from the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS), the University, and the Government of Alberta. We use these funds in conjunction with student-held external scholarships and individual faculty research grants to support highly-ranked MA, MSc, and PhD students, subject to the availability of qualified supervisory support. Our primary goal in distributing funds is to provide competitive, adequate funding.
Adequate funding means sufficient funds to study full-time, with no need for supplementary employment. At the minimum level of funding it may be difficult to live alone or maintain a car, but it should be possible to meet basic needs. Competitive funding means at a standard that is comparable to or better than graduate level funding at other Canadian universities. This closely parallels the level of NSERC and SSHRC awards.
Funding
Departmental funding is available on a competitive basis to outstanding students in the form of teaching assistantships and Faculty of Graduate Studies Scholarships.
Graduate funding and awards
The main sources of funding from the University of Calgary are graduate teaching assistantships (TAs) and Faculty of Graduate Studies scholarships (FGSS). Senior PhD students can also teach a course and receive funding through a graduate teaching fellowship (GTF). Each year the Department is allocated a quota of TA and FGSS funds from the Faculty of Graduate Studies. Our annual allocation is competitive within the University of Calgary; FGS has developed a formula for distributing these funds based on a number of performance metrics. This formula means that our annual allocation fluctuates and there are always uncertainties in our annual budget.
Graduate program contacts
Questions about our programs?