Graduate student Support
Financial Support - Advising and Job Placement - Facilities and Resources - Visit Us
Financial Support
Fellowships, assistantships, and tuition scholarships are available to a limited number of qualified full-time students in the Ph.D. program. In return for assistantships and/or tuition scholarships, students participate in apprenticeship-like relationships with individual faculty members and work on specific research projects.
The department also has been successful in receiving fellowships from the Graduate School program. The object of this program is training for teaching excellence at the undergraduate level. In this program, advanced graduate students in the Ph.D. program are given full responsibility for teaching in the undergraduate curriculum under the mentorship of an experienced professor. Teaching Scholars attend a special seminar on the integration of university teaching and research. Advanced Doctoral Fellowships, Schmitt Dissertation Fellowships and other university fellowships are available for dissertation support.
Applications for assistantships and fellowships may be obtained from the Graduate School and should be submitted along with the application for admission. The deadline for applying for admission and assistantships is February 1. The Graduate Record Exam (required for all applicant) should be taken early in the fall prior to application to ensure the department receives the scores for consideration for financial support. Although assistants and fellows may be appointed at any time, appointments are usually made in March. Specific assistantship assignments are made at the start of each semester.
Paid and volunteer internships in non-academic settings are also frequently available. The department actively helps students in locating such positions.
advising and Job Placement
The Sociology Department has a strong advising and mentoring program, giving graduate students the individual attention needed to successfully complete their programs. The department also assists its graduates in searching for appropriate job opportunities. Recent graduates have found positions in university and college teaching; federal, state and local governments; social service and research agencies; and religious and corporate organizations.
Facilities and Resources
Cudahy Library (located on the Lake Shore Campus) houses the university's fine arts, humanities, science and social sciences collections, as well as the University Archives and government document depository collections. The Cudahy collections comprise more than 900,000 volumes and 3,600 periodical subscriptions.
Students also have access to the business, law and medical collections located at the other campuses. Together, the libraries hold over 1.1 million volumes and 30,000 print and online journal subscriptions, and provide online access to a rich array of electronic resources. What we don’t have on campus can also be located and delivered through Inter-Library Loan.
The new Information Commons links to Cudahy Library by a café, and affords direct views of Lake Michigan and the planned Lake Shore Campus quadrangle. Among its state-of-the-art features, the building houses 222 computer workstations, six classrooms, wireless Internet access, 30 group-study rooms and a Help Desk to answer students' research and technology questions. All students have access to these computers and there is a small computing lab in the department.
Graduate housing is available at the Water Tower Campus for our graduate and professional students. Located at 26 E. Pearson St., the $51 million, 25-story Rev. Raymond C. Baumhart, S.J. Residence Hall, opened in 2006, is steps away from steps away from the Loyola Law Center, Law Library, Graduate School of Business, classrooms, the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA), and the Magnificant Mile. Public transportation and the intercampus shuttle bus are available to transport students to the Lake Shore Campus. New grad housing at the Lake Shore Campus is anticipated for Fall 2012. Currently most graduate students live off campus in apartments near the Lake Shore Campus in the Rogers Park neighborhood.
A modern recreational gymnasium and track -- the Halas Sports Center at the Lake Shore Campus -- provides handball, basketball, tennis, swimming, dance, and weight facilities.
Visit Our Department
Throughout the year the department sponsors special lectures (usually on Friday afternoons) by distinguished social scientists in our Colloquium Series. Recent speakers have included Pawan Dhingra, Elizabeth Bernstein, Mark Warren, Dawne Moon, Angel Harris and Hector Carrillo.
The department also sponsors several pot luck or informal dinners for faculty and graduate students each year. If you would like to attend one of these special events or an evening class, please make arrangements with the graduate program director. You are, of course, always welcome to come and talk with the graduate director or other faculty or graduate students.