The university offers initiatives and programs that are specifically tailored to graduate students from all backgrounds.

Application Fee Waiver for Underrepresented Domestic Students

If you are a U.S. applicant, with documentation from your program director, you are eligible to have the application fee waived for a Temple-hosted application if you participate in one of the following programs.

• Gates Millennium Scholars
• Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP)
• McNair Scholars
• NIH Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC)
• NIH Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP)
• Sally Casanova Scholars

For specific instructions on how to have your application fee waived, contact
Colleen Baillie, director of student services, graduate enrollment and data.
Email: [click-for-email]

Future Faculty Assistantship Program

In 1987, the Future Faculty Fellows Program was established at Temple University to promote and increase diversity among the American professoriate through fellowship awards to newly admitted underrepresented domestic graduate students. In 2019, the fellowship program was redesigned to offer annual assistantships that ensure summer funding.

Appointed by their school or college, newly admitted underrepresented domestic graduate students serve as teaching assistants or research assistants for the fall and spring terms. Each then spends the summer engaged in a research-mentored or creative project experience through funding from the Graduate School. Domestic research doctoral and MFA applicants who are eligible for this funding include

• ethnic minorities underrepresented in their discipline, as defined by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH);
• women underrepresented in their STEM fields, also as defined by NSF and NIH; and
• those who are other-abled.

IDEAL

The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership (IDEAL) is Temple’s initiative for promoting cross-cultural awareness and ensuring inclusivity in each of the university’s graduate programs within the student body and among faculty and staff. IDEAL continuously strives to create and foster meaningful engagement across identity groups in all of their various forms, promote understanding and provide opportunities for critical conversations necessary to maintain an inclusive environment.

IDEAL works with students, faculty and staff to maintain inclusivity and engagement through

• advocacy,
• dialogue in collaboration with internal and external partners,
• professional development,
• programming,
• recruitment and
• training.

The IDEAL office trains students to act as diversity peers who can be called on by faculty, students and staff to deliver presentations and workshops that affirm the benefits of diversity, equity and social justice to students, faculty or staff.