Graduate Programs

PhD Program with a Creative Dissertation

About the Program
The Department of English at UNLV offers the prestigious Schaeffer Fellowship, a program leading to the Ph.D. in English with a creative dissertation. The fellowship, awarded on a competitive basis and applied over three years, includes a $50,000 stipend, $25,000 in graduate teaching support, and full tuition remission, for an award package totaling over $87,000. Two fellowships are awarded annually, one each in poetry and fiction. The program, which centers on the study of English and American Literature and is designed to prepare students for careers in writing, teaching at the college or university level, editing, and publishing, includes course work in literature and creative writing, a qualifying examination, and a dissertation. Admission is limited to those who hold an MA or MFA in English or creative writing.

Fellowship Recipients
Initiated in 2001, the Schaeffer Fellowship program supports emerging writers of promise. Recipients have been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Pleiades, Glimmer Train, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Verse, River City, Mid-American Review, and Volt, and have been awarded residencies at MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. Their collective accolades include winning or being selected as a finalist for the O. Henry Award, the Nevada Arts Council Artists’ Fellowship, the Mary Roberts Rinehard Award, the Lawrence Foundation Prize, the Glimmer Train Short Story Award, the National Poetry Series, the Beatrix Hawley Award, the Dana Awards, the Fineline Competition, the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Award, the Sawtooth Poetry Prize, and the Transcontinental Poetry Prize, among others.

Schaeffer Fellows - Fiction (2001-present):

Alissa Nutting (MFA, University of Alabama), 2008
Maile Chapman (MFA, Syracuse University), 2006
Mark Baumgartner (MFA, Bowling Green State University), 2005
Katherine Lien Chariott (MFA, Cornell University), 2004
Vu Tran (MFA, Iowa Writers' Workshop), 2003
Constance Ford (MA, Hollins University), 2001
Karenmary Penn (MFA, University of Arizona), 2001

Schaeffer Fellows - Poetry (2001-present):

Andrew Nicholson (MFA, California College of the Arts), 2008
Christopher Arigo (MFA, Colorado State University), 2005
Heather Winterer (MFA, Columbia University), 2004
Joshua Kryah (MFA, Iowa Writers' Workshop), 2003
Matthew Shears (MFA, Iowa Writers' Workshop), 2002

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