The Biological Sciences Graduate Fund is the department's top priority and we are shooting for a $3 million endowment.
Graduate students are an essential aspect of our department's health and vitality. They contribute
original ideas and person power to move research programs forward. In fact, the average number of authors
on a manuscript in Biological / Biomedical research is six with two or even three graduate students contributing
to each manuscript. Therefore, a robust graduate program is essential to our success. The best graduate
students are highly sought after and to remain competitive we must offer support packages that are equivalent
to competing insitutions. These packages include stipend and tuition, as well as university fees for the first
9 months of graduate school; this amounts to approximately $25,000 per student. This fund provides some of the
resources essential to maintain competitiveness. Following the first 9 months of support, students are supported
by research grants and teaching assistantships. I add parenthetically that in Biological Sciences teaching assistants
staff laboratory courses and are never employed as lecturers. All lectures are taught by Ph.D. level instructors.
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The Biological Sciences Facilities Campaign Fund allows us to maintain and update our buildings. This includes
our research laboratories, our teaching laboratories and all our buildings in facilities such as cold and warm rooms, as
well as electrical wiring and air handling. All of these facilities are essential to a productive and smoothly operating
teaching and research department.
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