Graduate Students

In honor of the UTHC/DCHA Founding Director Thomas J.A. Heffernan and his many contributions to the University of Tennessee, a fund has been established to support humanities graduate students’ academic pursuits, such as, but not limited to, graduate internships in the Denbo Center, dissertation workshops, and expenses related to research. 

The Denbo Center offers four Graduate Student Research Fellowships to PhD students who are past comprehensive exams and writing their dissertations. Students must be pursuing humanities-centered, qualitative research, and preference will be given in competitions to DCHA-affiliated arts and humanities departments. A DCHA Fellowship is a full-year research release from teaching and service while in residency at the Center; the DCHA pays tuition, stipend, and fees for resident fellows. Residency includes research space at the Center, access to our library liaison and to designated travel funds, and opportunities to publicly present research at Chandler Seminars and engage with distinguished visiting scholars.  

For more information, please see the Denbo Center’s Sharepoint site. 

The DCHA offers travel funding during the summer months to graduate students to help them complete their dissertation and thesis work. Students may travel to source archives, exhibitions, and performances in and outside the US that are central to their thesis and dissertation research. Advanced graduate students in arts and humanities departments may apply for travel grants to be used between the months of May and August of the year of award. 

Applicants must be full-time graduate students at the University of Tennessee. Students may be M.F.A. students writing theses toward their degrees or Ph.D. students finished with coursework or past comprehensive exams and at the ABD stages of their programs. MA students may apply, but priority will be given to advanced graduate students completing terminal degrees. The grants cannot be used for travel to deliver papers at conferences or professional meetings; for the purchase of books, articles, software, or hardware; for help with manuscript preparation; or for non-research purposes. The annual deadline for applications is announced by the DCHA. Applications are vetted on a rolling basis by faculty evaluators, and applicants will be notified shortly after evaluation about whether they have been funded. Because the pool of money for these grants is limited, not all requests will be funded and it is unlikely that all will be funded at requested levels. These grants will be handled as a scholarship and reported and paid through Financial Aid if students wish to make travel arrangements themselves, or students can ask their home departments to arrange travel and we will reimburse those departments (recommended). Money not used by students may not be carried over to following semesters or used for other purposes.   

For more information, please see the Denbo Center’s Sharepoint site.

Graduate students may participate in our DCHA Research Seminars as members or graduate student assistants. Graduate students should contact Research Seminar faculty conveners if interested in participating in a specific seminar. 

The Denbo Center offers faculty and graduate students working in arts and humanities departments the opportunity to attend the annual Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI), in partnership with UT Libraries. For more information, see this page at our SharePoint site. 

The Denbo Center offers dedicated hours to a WriteOnSite program for graduate students. Learn more on this page of our Sharepoint site.