What about funding?
All students admitted to the Plan-A master’s and doctoral program in history are granted funding for five or four years, respectively (contingent, of course, on satisfactory progress and university funding). The usual progression is:
* one year as a research assistant (up to 20 hours a week)
* one year as a graduate instructor leading discussion sections for a survey course (three sections of 27 students per semester; sections meet twice a week)
* during subsequent years of eligibility, teaching Issues or Diversity courses that grad students design themselves (three sections of 27 students per year)
Some students, usually those entering with a master’s degree and previous teaching experience, skip the RA and discussion-section steps and instead teach for two years in the rhetoric department (three sections of 22 students per year). The rhetoric positions allow the history department to fund a couple of more students a year.
For senior graduate instructors, a few other positions are also available in the history department, such as:
* advising undergrads in the History Writing Center
* advising undergraduate honors students
* leading undergraduate “capstone” classes
* graduate instructor supervisor
* Writing Center coordinator
Annual salaries vary depending on position (RA or GI) and how many years you’ve been working at Iowa. The 2001-02 minimum for half-time RAs is $14,718, with half-time GIs who have been here for two years or more earning nearly $17,000. Salaries are paid in ten installments, from September 1 to June 1—in July and August we’re on our own. In addition, sometimes graderships and smaller research assistantships are available.
You must pay tuition and fees out of your pay, but even so most grad students find their salaries adequate for living expenses during the school year (though some supplement with loans).
Students who have passed their comprehensive exams and completed their coursework currently pay only a post-comp fee of $70 a semester. A post-comp fee equal to tuition for two credits a semester (currently $412) is scheduled to go into effect Fall 2002.
All RAs and GIs are covered by the Campaign to Organize Graduate Students (UE Local 896-COGS ) union contract, which has provided raises each of the last four years (since UI grad students unionized), as well as low-cost medical, dental, and mental-health insurance and some child-care assistance. The history department 2001-02 union stewards are Dana Quartana and John McKerley.