Graduate Students in EEB are guaranteed a base income while within the guaranteed funding period for their program.

For EEB graduate students the base income is approximately $30,000/year ($21,000 for rent, living expenses, etc. and approximately $9000 for tuition and other fees). To receive this base income, graduate students are expected to work as a Teaching Assistant (TA) for 140 hours per year. These base income rates apply to students during the guaranteed funding period.

Many of our students receive higher incomes than the “base income” described above by virtue of receiving University, provincial, federal, or international scholarships. For example, a second year PhD student awarded an NSERC PGS-D award will receive approximately $26,000 (after tuition) and will have their TA load reduced by 50%. If that student had a NSERC CGS-D award, they would receive approximately $32,000 with a 50% reduction in their TA load.

Those outside the guaranteed funding period are not guaranteed funding, though many receive some level of funding. If you are more than half way through the guaranteed funding period and are not 100% sure you will complete your degree before the end of that period, you should regularly discuss your funding situation as it relates to your time to completion with your supervisor. While students find these conversations awkward, they are a necessary and natural part of the process. You can always seek advice from members of your supervisory committee, the Graduate Coordinator, or the Associate Chair of Graduate Studies. In conjunction with your advisor, it may be sensible to adjust your research plans to finish in a more timely fashion. Many of the students that stay beyond the guaranteed funding period receive some funding from their supervisor as well as other sources of support from the department and university. However, these funding sources are not guaranteed and may result in less income than you received previously. To avoid a difficult situation, you are strongly encouraged to communicate regularly with your supervisor about your progress through your degree, your time to completion, and your funding situation.  

In August of each year, you and your supervisor will receive a statement of your guaranteed income for the following year, a breakdown of the value of each kind of support in the total package, and a letter describing each of the kinds of support. This description will take into account your visa status (domestic/international), term of first registration, any major scholarships you hold, and your stage in your degree program. The package represents a framework you and your supervisor can customize to some extent. Together you may choose to alter TA hours and amounts paid as Research Assistantships according to some constraints (see below). The scheduling of RA payments can be adjusted to best meet your individual needs. When you and your supervisor have agreed on the details, a jointly signed description of the customized support plan should be submitted to the local financial administrator for implementation. You will receive more information in August about this, when you receive your stipend package form. 

Funding packages for students without major external fellowships include income from 140 hours per year that each student works as a teaching assistant in undergraduate courses. In EEB, for students in the funded cohort, a maximum of 140 hours of TAing are included in the base funding package for students without a major scholarship and any TAing done above that amount is on top of their base funding package.

Funding packages for students supported by major external scholarships (NSERC, CIHR, OGS, FQRNT) require only 70 TA hours per year. 

The TA component of support packages may be increased or decreased based on discussions between students and their supervisors and, for students out of the regular funded cohort, may be contingent on the availability of TA positions. A student is permitted to teach fewer hours than specified in their funding package, but they thereby reduce their total income (unless the supervisor has agreed to compensate by providing additional RA funding). With the permission of the supervisor(s), if extra TA slots are available, a student may take on more teaching than is specified in the support package, increasing his/her total income.

Research Assistantships are paid by supervisors to their graduate students as part of their stipend. This funding comes from the supervisors’ research grants and helps to pay for the students’ fees and their living expenses.

UTF funds are provided by the Faculty of Arts & Science to help pay for tuition fees while students are in the guaranteed income period (“funded cohort”). Students supported by external fellowships receive reduced levels of UTF.  Those outside the guaranteed funding period are ineligible to receive any UTF, but are still required to pay tuition.

EEB Restricted Awards are funded by the interest on donations by private individuals to the Department, supplemented by matching gifts from the University and sometimes the Province. This endowment plays a critical role in allowing our department to provide graduate students an income that is both above the minimum level set by Arts & Science and with a low TA load (140 hours) as well as recognize outstanding achievements by individual students with additional top-ups. No applications are necessary for the awards. Every graduate student in EEB is automatically considered for them. For some endowed awards, recipients must be studying particular groups of organisms or kinds of processes (as requested by the donor(s)). There are some financial needs requirements for some of the awards, but most graduate students (unless they are independently wealthy) satisfy those criteria; for these awards, before students will be paid, they must complete and submit a form to the EEB Graduate Office. Typical values of the Restricted Awards vary widely depending on other components of students’ financial package.

Scholarships valued at $10K -$30K that are awarded based on national or provincial competitions represent a major source of support for EEB students. This support frees up grant money from RA allocations to fund further research, conferences, etc. Arts & Science provides top-up awards to the department for some eligible, major scholarships. It is EEB departmental policy to add these top-up awards to the guaranteed incomes of students winning eligible scholarships and to reduce the number of TA hours in support packages for winners of the larger scholarships.

This Arts & Science funding program is aimed at PhD students who are leaving the funded cohort before finishing their degree. Administration of the DCA program is done by our department. 

Eligibility

• Have not received more than 1 year of support from the DCA program.
• Have completed all their coursework and passed their appraisal exam (= achieved candidacy).
• Have had a committee meeting in the last year and have shown good progress based on committee meeting reports and their supervisor’s evaluation
• Are recommended for support by their supervisors.

Application Form & Deadline

The EEB Graduate Office will send the relevant information and form to all eligible students during the summer (usually June/July). The award value and information about payment of the award will be available in July. In recent years, the amounts have varied from $2000-2600 for domestic and double that for international students.