Grad School Programs Death Watch: University of Iowa
One of the cardinal rules of humanities grad school is that, if you’re going to go, make sure you get paid to go. Many grad school programs offer fellowships, but those fellowships are getting cut next year at the University of Iowa:
The UI’s graduate programs that were marked as needing more evaluation in a recent report won’t receive fellowship funding to recruit new students for the upcoming academic year, Graduate College Dean John Keller said Thursday.
Some of the programs affected include the following: “American studies, Asian civilizations, comparative literature, comparative literature (translation), film studies, German [and] linguistics.”
If you have a passion to attend grad school in any of these programs, what’s happening at the University of Iowa could be a trend, and it will be tougher to get funding. I’m not sure what people seem to have against learning other languages, as other nations encourage students to learn more than one language, but maybe someone will come to their senses.
14 programs won’t get new grad money [The Daily Iowan]
U. of Iowa Lists 14 Graduate Programs at Risk for Cuts or Elimination [Chronicle of Higher Ed]
Post Academic 
on March 5, 2010 on 6:52 pm
I applied for a job at U Iowa in 2008. I didn’t make it to a MLA interview, but found out later (via the job wiki) that the search was cancelled *after* campus visits.
on March 11, 2010 on 9:14 pm
this cutting grad programs at iowa thing has upset everyone on campus: people seem unable to talk about anything else! the cut funding is for incoming students, though, not for continuing students. in a strange way, continuing students are now in an advantageous position because they face no competition from younger cohorts for the teaching in their areas. on the other hand, they have to keep up morale in a “dead” program — that -sucks-.
on March 12, 2010 on 1:59 am
Thanks for the on-the-ground report, Naomi! Do you have any idea if the programs will return at any point in the future?