Department Awards & Deadlines

The Gronbeck Collegiality Award

Deadline: 10/3/2022

The Gronbeck Collegiality Award provides two annual $1,000 travel awards to graduate students who best contribute to collegiality and a positive department culture. The award would be in addition to the conference travel funds that the Department of Communication Studies provides, and should be used in the same manner.

This award recognizes graduate students who believe in and demonstrate the collegial qualities Bruce Gronbeck was known for, namely:

  • Respect and civility
  • Encouragement and guidance, both personally and professionally
  • Appreciation of diverse opinions
  • Supporting the vigorous defense of one’s ideas
  • A short memory and bountiful second chances
  • Inclusivity
  • Acknowledgement and recognition
  • Mentoring and challenging
  • Optimism and giving benefit of doubt
  • Direct communication, face to face
  • Supporting the widest participation
  • Nourishing a pleasant work atmosphere

Nominations may be sent via e-mail to the Director of Graduate Studies for Communication Studies.

Becker/Bowers/Bryant Awards

Deadline: 10/3/2022

  • Samuel L. Becker Award for Outstanding Graduate Scholarship in Media History and Culture
  • John Waite Bowers Award for Outstanding Graduate Scholarship in Interpersonal Communication and Relationships
  • Donald C. Bryant Award for Outstanding Graduate Scholarship in Rhetoric, Culture, Engagement 

The total award amount is $750 for each award.  If there are multiple winners of an award, all winners would split the total award amount.

The annual Becker, Bowers, and Bryant Awards are granted, respectively, for outstanding graduate scholarship in media history and culture, interpersonal communication and relationships, and rhetoric, culture, engagement.  Applicants may only submit papers written while in the graduate program in Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. Work that integrates elements of any of the three areas of inquiry are welcome, regardless of the student's declared area of interest, but the award being sought must be specified at the time of application.  A paper may be submitted for only one of the awards, and only one paper may be submitted per person.  Co-authored papers are welcome, so long as the co-author(s) are fellow UI graduate students in Communication Studies.  Papers must be written in the style appropriate to work in your tradition (e.g., APA, Chicago, MLA).  Paper length should not exceed 30 double-spaced pages (excluding references, endnotes, tables, figures, etc.).  Papers should not contain any author identifiers, except on the title page. As a reminder, submitted papers are not required to have collected/analyzed data. For example, study proposals and conceptual pieces are also acceptable.

Submit your paper in electronic form to Cassie Moeller (cassie-moeller@uiowa.edu) as a word document with the name of the award you are applying for (Becker, Bowers, or Bryant) in the subject line.

Winners will be determined based on evaluations made by Communication Studies alumni reviewers and announced in the fall semester, but the award will be given in the Spring Graduate Awards Ceremony. If the recipient would like to receive the cash prize earlier, let the Department Administrator know.

NOTE TO APPLICANT: Funds for these awards will first be applied to any outstanding balance on your U-Bill. If you are receiving financial aid from the University of Iowa’s Office of Student Financial Aid (OSFA), this award could impact the aid that you have already received. If your other aid has to be reduced, you will be notified by the OSFA. Any remaining funds from your award will either be directly deposited to your bank account (if you have direct deposit set up with the University), or sent to you in the form of a check via first class mail from the Cashier’s Office, 5 Calvin Hall, 319.335.0071.

Dissertation Research Awards

Deadline: 10/3/2022

The Department of Communication Studies has set aside an annual allocation of $4,000 to support research by graduate students in good standing. Dissertation Research Awards are intended to assist students with dissertation-related work including, but not limited to, a dissertation chapter, a pilot study, or data collection to support a dissertation. Award funds may be used for travel to archives or to interview informants, for the payment of research participants, or for the purchase of equipment or services necessary for one’s research.

A proposal of two-pages maximum must include the signature of the sponsoring faculty advisor for the project. The proposal should include an itemized budget and disclose funding already allocated by the department for the project.  

Funding will be disbursed in two funding cycles, one in the fall and one in the spring semester. Applicants should note that funds are limited, and the committee will need to exercise discretion to support as many research projects as feasible; thus, large requests are unlikely to be funded in full in the fall cycle.  A given student may apply a second time during the spring cycle to support a given project.

Awards will be announced in both the fall and spring.

Submit materials to Hope Koch (hope-koch@uiowa.edu).

Graduate College Awards & Deadlines

Ballard & Seashore Dissertation Fellowship 

  • Submit materials to hope-koch@uiowa.edu by the departmental deadline of 9/8/22 for Spring 2023 Award Nominations
  • Students must ensure all letters of recommendation (eg. from faculty members) are also to hope-koch@uiowa.edu by the internal deadline to be considered for nomination to the graduate college.
  • Departments may nominate one student for every eight Ph.D. students admitted to candidacy, up to a maximum of four students. Nominations are to be rank ordered.
  • For fellowship description, qualifications, and submission materials visit the Grad College website.

Graduate College Post-Comprehensive Research Awards

  • Submit materials to hope-koch@uiowa.edu by the departmental deadline of 9/8/22 for Spring 2023 Award Nominations
  • Students must ensure all letters of recommendation (eg. from faculty members) are also to hope-koch@uiowa.edu by the internal deadline to be considered for nomination to the graduate college.
  • Departments may nominate (in rank order) up to four students who completed their comprehensive exams between the specified times, per deadline.  
  • For fellowship description, qualifications, and submission materials visit the Grad College website.

CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowships 

  • Submit materials to hope-koch@uiowa.edu by the departmental deadline of 10/4/22 for Summer/Fall 2023 Award Nominations
  • Students must ensure all letters of recommendation (eg. from faculty members) are also to hope-koch@uiowa.edu by the internal deadline to be considered for nomination to the graduate college.
  • In the case of more than one application from the same PhD program, the DGS ranks the applications from that program and describes the formal process by which the ranking was determined. 
  • For fellowship description, qualifications, and submission materials visit the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences website.