The GSEE Graduate Excellence Award (GEA) is a three-quarter merit-based research assistantship that will be awarded to individual departments based on departmental efforts around inclusion and belonging (see details below). This award aims to assist departments in recruiting, developing and supporting a unique community of graduate scholars across graduate programs at the University of Washington with emphasis on promoting rich, culturally responsive educational opportunities.
This award is not open for student applications. If you are a student and have questions about this award, please reach out to your department.
APPLICATION DEADLINE: OPENS on Monday, October 12, 2026 at noon and CLOSES on Friday, November 27, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Award Details
- It is an expectation that this state-funded award is used to recruit graduate students to the University of Washington’s master’s and doctoral programs whose research, work, and/or service demonstrates their sustained commitment to community-centered work.
- Departments must provide a match of comparable funding for the second year of graduate studies. The matching funds cannot come from other Graduate School funding resources.
- In total, this award will offer at minimum two years/six quarters of guaranteed funding to incoming students.
Eligibility
Departments with state-based master’s and/or doctoral programs are eligible to apply.
The following are ineligible:
- Professional degree programs (Dentistry, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy)
- Self-sustaining/fee-based programs (evening degree or extension programs)
- Study abroad programs
- Students who hold a temporary or student visa (F-1 or J-1)
Application
All materials must be submitted electronically through the MyGrad Program. No exceptions will be made. If all application materials are not submitted via MGP, the application will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed.
Please ensure the person submitting the application has the correct MGP access at least a week before the deadline.
Application Questions
Please note that all application materials submitted for this award must comply with applicable civil rights laws including Washington State’s Initiative 200 (I-200) and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The UW’s Civil Rights Compliance Office has created a checklist to facilitate compliance with I-200 and Title VI. Please review the checklist before submitting to ensure your application is compliant, and note that the review committee for this award will also be referencing this checklist.
The following questions should be answered with input from faculty, staff, and/or relevant departmental committee members. Please be prepared to input your answers to the questions in text boxes in MyGrad.
Professional Development (2,000 character limit for each question)
- How does your department promote dialoguing across difference (e.g. workshops, discussions, series, Excellence Progress Tool)?
- Does your department take advantage of Graduate School programming and/or field-specific programming and resources that center inclusion and belonging? If so, describe how.
Mentorship of Graduate Students (2,000 character limit for each question)
- Describe if, and how, faculty are encouraged, supported and/or measured in mentoring graduate students whose research, work, and/or service demonstrates their sustained commitment to community-centered work.
- How are faculty/staff being prepared to best meet the needs of all students? How is this preparation and its efficacy being measured?
Departmental Funding Match (2,000 character limit)
- Please describe your department’s plan for a comparable funding match for the second year of graduate studies.
The following statement should be written by the School/College Dean or Graduate Program Coordinator (GPC) and can be uploaded as a PDF (maximum two pages, double-spaced, 12-point font).
The purpose of this statement is to reflect on how your department’s approach to inclusion and belonging is built into departmental structures and systems, as well as how your department works to address inequities within your field. Please address the following questions:
- How does your department move beyond dialogue into meaningful change? Include how efforts are measured and assessed. If they are not being measured, please share that information and how progress is being made in those efforts.
- How does your department use experiential diversity to inform policies impacting graduate students? If policies are not yet informed by these principles, please share that information and how policies may begin to reflect different needs and experiences.
- Please also lay out a plan for meeting the funding match requirement of this award in the statement.
- At the end of the statement, please include contact information (department, name, title, email, and phone number) of the person(s) completing the application.
Questions?
Please email Fernando Puga, GSEE’s Fellowships & Awards Specialist at fernp21@uw.edu or uwgsee@uw.edu or call 206.543.9016 with any questions.