Financial Support
Funding opportunities through other units at UNM
Many Linguistics graduate students work in other departments or service units at UNM. Two units that have been particularly good sources of employment for our students are the Center for Academic Program Support (CAPS) and the Center for English Language and American Culture (CELAC). The Office for Academic Personnel maintains a list of open assistantship positions across campus. Interested students with appropriate qualifications should contact these units directly. The links below relate to a variety of funding sources with different purposes. Please note that these links will take you to websites outside the Linguistics department.
Graduate Student and Professional Association
The Department of Linguistics provides limited support for some graduate students. Students are encouraged to explore other sources both within and outside UNM.
Joseph H. Greenberg Endowed Research Fellowship
The Department of Linguistics offers one fellowship to support doctoral study. The Joseph H. Greenberg Fellowship was endowed by a generous bequest from the late Selma Greenberg. The fellowship will provide a stipend and a part-time research assistantship to an outstanding doctoral student for three years. The department will provide a fourth year of support through a full-time teaching assistantship. The fellowship and the teaching assistantship will also provide up to nine hours of graduate tuition each fall and spring semester, as well as graduate health insurance coverage. All applicants to the Ph.D. program in Linguistics at UNM will be considered; there is no separate fellowship application form.
Previous recipients are: 2009 Ah-Rim Kim, 2010 Corrine Occhino-Kehoe, 2011 Shelece Easterday, 2012 Jackelyn Van Buren, 2013 John Mitchell Sances, 2014 Tim Zingler, 2016 Meagan Vigus & Lukas Denk, 2017 Jens Van Gysel, 2018 Daven Hobbs, 2019 Hunter Brown, 2020 Devin Tankersley, 2021 Bethany Lycan, 2022 Sarah Lease & Bruno Pinto Silva, 2023 Sean Lundergan, 2024 Eliza Forrest.
Teaching Assistantships
The department hires a limited number of graduate students to teach sections of Linguistics 101. Students are selected for these positions based on their academic progress. An application form is distributed each fall. These applications are then evaluated by all of the department faculty. Some preference is given to PhD students in hiring, although MA students are occasionally selected. Occasionally there may be opportunities to teach other courses (besides Ling 101), or to serve as an assistant or grader to a faculty member. These positions are assigned using the same process as for the Ling 101 assignments. Linguistics students are also hired to teach in other departments, particularly English Composition or elementary language courses. Students with interest in and appropriate qualifications for such positions should contact the relevant department, and also inform the Linguistics Graduate Advisor.
Research Assistantships
Faculty members with outside grant funding may hire graduate (and/or undergraduate) students to assist with their research projects. These positions usually require specific skills relevant to the project, e.g., knowledge of a specific language. Students interested in serving as a research assistant should inquire of faculty working in areas of interest to them. Currently, the faculty with grant support include Melissa Axelrod, William Croft, Holly Jacobson, Chris Koops, Dawn Nordquist, Naomi Shin, Caroline Smith and Rosa Vallejos-Yopan.
