Revised: March 2025
State line availability varies year by year. As a result, the faculty eligible to recruit a student will vary. Typically, each research active faculty member* will be eligible for a state line if they have no state funded student who will be in their first or second year of funding in the following academic year. The Chair will notify faculty of their eligibility to recruit through a state line no later than the Fall of the year of recruitment.
If the number of eligible faculty still exceeds the number of recruitment lines, the Chair, in consultation with the Administrative Team, will determine a fair and equitable means of distributing the lines.
State-funded graduate lines are assigned to individuals and not to areas, though the health of each area is kept in mind as lines are allocated.
If a faculty member chooses not to use a recruitment line, the line will be re-allocated by the Chair.
It is expected that recruitment lines will be used for support of new students. A line may be used for support of any other graduate student only by permission of the Chair.
Lines will not be released for recruitment until it is confirmed that a faculty member’s faculty directory webpage (i.e., listing of research interests and publications) has been updated within the current academic year.
If a student who will be in their first or second year of funding chooses to work with another faculty member, the Chair will make a determination as to whether the former and new supervising faculty members will be eligible for recruitment lines.
Given the limited availability of state lines, faculty should be striving to find ways to support doctoral trainees on fellowships or grants.
The department will reserve one state line for the Research Participant Group Coordinator and one for the Assistant Director of the Psychological Services Center.
Accepting PhD trainees without funding is strongly discouraged. If a graduate student is accepted without funding, the student and prospective supervising faculty member should have no expectations that state funding will ensue in subsequent years. Under no circumstances should any faculty member promise or promote expectations that an unfunded student will receive funding in the form of a state line at any point in the recruitment process or in the student’s graduate career.
The College of Arts and Sciences will not provide state funding for a graduate student beyond their fifth year. This applies to all students, even those who have been funded previously through Research Foundation (RF) funding. For example, a student who was RF funded for their first five years is not eligible to receive state funding beyond their fifth year.
*“Research active” status will be determined by the Chair based on professional activity within the past three years involving substantive participation of graduate students. “Faculty” is defined in the Department of Psychology bylaws.