The graduate secretary assembles the list of applicants to our program.
Faculty members are asked to identify which applicants they want to sponsor. In most cases, they will only identify applicants with whom they have already been in contact. However, sometimes faculty will see applications that name them as potential advisors, and will contact those applicants to determine whether they want to sponsor them.
Applications that do not have faculty sponsors usually do not progress past this point.
The list of applicants with faculty sponsors is sent to the Graduate Affairs Committee. This committee reviews all of these applications and ranks them. The highest ranked applications are then selected to apply for the College of Natural Science recruitment fellowships.
Applicants that are selected for CNS recruitment fellowships are then also considered for university recruiting fellowships (University Distinguished Fellowship and University Enrichment Fellowship, https://grad.msu.edu/universityfellowships).
Admission is offered to students receiving these fellowships. Applicants not selected for these fellowships may be offered admission as well if we are able to guarantee 5 years of funding for them (for example, the applicant may have already secured an NSF GRFP; the applicant’s adviser has sufficient funds to offer research assistantships; or the department knows for sure that we have enough teaching assistantships available).
Funding for IBIO PhD students is guaranteed for 5 years. Note that the 5-year guarantee only applies to the academic year (fall and spring semesters), not summers. This means that students in the guaranteed period are prioritized for teaching assistantships. Students that are past the guaranteed period are still eligible for TAs (and often get them), RAs, and fellowships. Different types of funding are available.
Research assistantship (RA): Paid by the student's adviser, usually from an external grant or startup funding. Pays a salary with taxes taken out; tuition and health insurance are also covered. The expectation is that the student spends their time working on research. Details will be agreed upon between the student and adviser. It is not typical for faculty to have enough funding to support an RA for a student's entire degree.
Teaching assistantship (TA): Paid by the department, pays salary with taxes taken out; tuition and health insurance are also covered. Many students teach one class per semester.
Fellowship: Paid by the college or university (or an external agency). Paid as a stipend – does not have taxes taken out (*this means they'll need to set some money aside to pay them at tax time!). Fellowships do not have teaching/research expectations beyond dissertation research.
Recruitment fellowships for new graduate students, including the College of Natural Science Recruiting Fellowship and the University Distinguished Fellowship (https://grad.msu.edu/universityfellowships), include waivers for tuition and health insurance.
Dissertation Continuation Fellowships, and Dissertation Completion Fellowships (https://grad.msu.edu/fellowships/dissertation), which advanced graduate students can apply for on a semester by semester basis, do not include waivers for tuition and health insurance.
Other fellowships offered by the MSU Graduate School can be found here: https://grad.msu.edu/msu-graduate-school-fellowships
External fellowships, such as the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, follow the rules of that agency. Payment is typically via stipend without taxes taken out.
IBIO has openings for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) every fall, spring, and summer (in the summer, there are two sessions). To be considered for a GTA position, students must submit a Teaching Preferences sheet and their CV. Students who are in their five-year guaranteed funding period receive priority for teaching assignments.
A substantial number of our teaching slots are in ISB and Biosci.
The pay scale for teaching assistantships has three levels: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.
To be considered a Level 3 Assistant, the department requires a student to have passed comprehensive exams and 6 semesters of previous teaching at MSU or equivalent experience in another graduate program.
See the GEU/MSU contract (http://geuatmsu.org/about/geu-contract/) for more about teaching assistantship levels.
See also the Graduate Assistantship Information from the Graduate School (https://grad.msu.edu/assistantships).
Timeline:
Fall semester courses:
March: The graduate secretary sends an email to the grad student list asking for teaching preferences and CVs.
Mid-April: Deadline for the graduate program director to make teaching assignments and send names to ISB and Biosci.
Late April: Graduate secretary sends out teaching assistantship offer letters to students.
Spring semester courses:
September: The graduate secretary sends an email to the grad student list asking for teaching preferences and CVs.
Mid-October: Deadline for the graduate program director to make teaching assignments and send names to ISB and Biosci.
Late October: Graduate secretary sends out teaching assistantship offer letters to students.
Summer semester courses:
February: The graduate secretary sends an email to the grad student list asking for teaching preferences and CVs.
Mid-March: Deadline for the graduate program director to make teaching assignments and send names to ISB and Biosci.
Late March: Graduate secretary sends out teaching assistantship offer letters to students.
How the assignment process works:
The graduate secretary (Lisa Craft) collects students’ teaching preferences and CVs, and sends them along with the course schedule to the graduate program director (Danielle Whittaker).
The graduate program director looks through all applicants’ teaching preferences and expertise, and uses this information to make the best matches. Every effort is made to fulfill requests, but this is not guaranteed.
Students should use the preference sheet to communicate any special needs or concerns to the graduate program director. For example, if a student would like to TA in both summer session 1 and summer session 2, the GPD will make two assignments if there are enough spots available. Otherwise, the GPD will only assign one summer course per student.
Once the assignments have been made, the graduate secretary sends the names of the students assigned to Biosci and ISB courses to the appropriate administrators. Then she sends out offer letters to students who have been assigned to IBIO courses. The business manager handles the appointment paperwork and budgeting.
Sometimes changes occur to the assignments, especially if students who asked for a TA position later obtain funding for an RA or a fellowship. In this case, any students who were on a waiting list for an assignment will be assigned to the new opening(s).
The MSU Graduate School requires that all graduate students meet with their committees every year and submit an Annual Progress Report each spring (preferably before April). The IBIO evaluation form can be found here: https://integrativebiology.natsci.msu.edu/graduate-program/annual-progress-report-form/. The completed form should be submitted to the Graduate Secretary, Lisa Craft.
If this report is not submitted annually, your student will not be in good standing.