George Washington

[Liz]

Has anyone heard anything from George Washington (the university, not the dead president)? Their website has application information from two years ago. This does not inspire confidence.

[massive]

Unfortunately, neither does your post. Spend 10 seconds reading this forum.

[Liz]

Actually, I check this forum quite regularly. Perhaps there is some confusion due to the similarity of names. I'm wondering about George Washington University in Washington, D.C. I may have missed it, but I don't think there has been much discussion of this school.

[pkong]

GEORGE WASHINGTON is in washington dc.

The University of Washington is in Seattle, Washington.

Washington University is in St. Louis.

[MinnieMouse1224]

Wow, I didn't think your question would invoke that kind of response:

I'll tell you what I know: I considered applying there this year, but was told by a professor (who gave me a link to their department "blog" to back up what he was saying) that GWU was not going to have any funding this year and was therefore not going to admit any candidates.

But, I don't know if they weren't accepting applications anyways?

If you go to the dept website and then go to the blog, scroll down to around, I guess Sept/Oct? There should be comments about funding there.

Hope this helps! :-)

[Liz]

Thanks, Minnie. That definitely helps, disappointing as the news is. Fortunately, I have other options, but it's just a shame that such a cool program with a great relationship with the Folger is in such dire straits.

Here's the link to the blog, should anyone else need it:

http://gwenglish.blogspot.com/2008/10/w ... html#links

[SmartCookie]

I actually don't think the last post is correct. I am a recent GW graduate and still have close ties to the English Department. Although selection is remarkably competitive, they are taking students, however few.

Also, Master's students that I've known haven't been funded in the past, although TA-ships are available as allocated by the department.

It's a wonderful program, though. The professors there are truly a lively and invested team.

[Liz]

I actually don't think the last post is correct. I am a recent GW graduate and still have close ties to the English Department. Although selection is remarkably competitive, they are taking students, however few.

Unfortunately, I think it is correct. Again, from the GW English blog (http://gwenglish.blogspot.com/):

"I've written on this blog before about how, economically, it is not easy to be a graduate student at GW because our programs are in general underfunded. This paucity of resources seems especially evident in English, where we possess the means to fund a total of only EIGHT students at any one time. Graduate programs our size at comparable institutions typically fund three times that number. I've outlined on this blog what a fully funded English graduate program at GW would look like. I stand by my assertion that such a program would be the envy of anything in the Ivy League: we have resources here in DC (the Folger, the Library of Congress) that other programs simply cannot match. Our faculty are unparallelled. It disappoints me that we do not possess the resources to create a graduate program in English that achieves our actual ambitions, because everyone would benefit: undergraduates, by having the best possible teachers and role models in their survey classes; faculty, by training and working with those at the cutting edge of humanities research; and graduate students, by having the financial support they require to undertake advanced literary study.

"In my annual report last year, I observed the following:

"Major Challenges & Obstacles

Our greatest obstacle is our meager budget. Some pressure has been alleviated through the influx of donor and research money, so that for the first time we can afford to sponsor visiting scholars. We do not, however, have a reliable source to pay for faculty travel, office equipment, or new initiatives.

"Where our poverty in resources will impact us most, however, is our graduate program. We have so few GTAs assigned to the department that we cannot actually sustain a sufficient cadre of graduate students: we cannot, in other words, attain the critical mass that we need in order to become the program worthy of a Research I university that we know we could be. As things stand now, we will likely be able to support and therefore admit NO doctoral students in 2008-09, a catastrophe for a PhD program that has burgeoned in strength and quality over the past few years. This lack of GTAs will impact undergraduate education as well, compelling us to rethink our ability to offer the successful English 40W course since it relies upon GTAs for sections.

"Sadly, nothing I wrote in that second paragraph has changed since I composed its dire words last June. The English Department has seen no increase to its support for graduate students -- and may even face a reduction due to budget cuts. That lack of funding means we may not be able to attract any PhD students this year, preventing a doctoral program of great promise from achieving its superlative potential."

[mss420]

They are admitting, but not offering funding, except maybe one slot if they're lucky. The dean made them post a statement that all admits were fully funded, bizarrely, because he then refused the funding for it. I was accepted but told "it's a lean year." I feel bad for the dept chairs; I've served time in unfunded academia before and it's embarrassing. If anyone else communicates with the interim DGS (we've emailed back and forth a few times, and he's quite beleaguered [sp?] and kind), be gentle!

[pkong]

to the person above:

Were you accepted by their program ?