The Graduate School Grants and Fellowship Office recently has been established to aid graduate students in finding research grants, fellowships and graduate assistantships.

Graduate School Assistant Dean Philip Daniel, who created the office, said, “I fully expect it will turn into something tremendous for NIU.”

Jerrold Zar, dean and associate provost for graduate studies and research, said, “It (the office) should provide graduate students with information that will assist them more than the university, on its budget, can provide.”

Daniels said the office has three functions: to aid students in finding available sources for funding, to act as a clearing house for graduate assistants to find university funded graduate teaching and to search for additional funding sources.

“There has never been an office like this before (at NIU). Information has been scattered or unavailable,” Zar said.

Daniel said there was a need for the office on campus. “There is an office of sponsor projects for faculty but no office for students.”

The office has composed a complete funding directory which has listings of more than 500 funding sources. Federal and state government funding, funding from private foundations and corporations are listed in the directory.

Daniel said public funding sources are provided primarily by the national government from such agencies as the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

e said Illinois also funds some fellowship programs, two of which are designed specifically to increase minority enrollment in graduate education.

The Graduate Student Newsletter stated, “Copies of the directory have been distributed to each college dean’s office, academic department and academic center.”

The fundings used to create the directory were state funds from the graduate school, Daniel said. He also said that was the only funding needed in creating the office.

The newsletter stated, “Daniel noted that GSGFO staff members will maintain a constant flow of communication with other institutions of higher education that have similar libraries of finding alternatives.”

Daniel said the idea to open the office has been in his head for three and a half years, as long as he has been in the graduate school. “We were just able to open it in the fall.”