Posted 1/17/2008

Chandler releases funds to encourage and
 support Ph.D recruitment

Interim Dean Tom Chandler recently announced that $300,000 from the Norman J. Arnold Endowment will be used to help recruit and support doctoral students in the Arnold School’s funded research activities. “Doctoral students are the bread and butter of top quality research programs” Chandler said. "They bring enthusiasm, ideas, energy and excitement to the daily lives of research academicians."

Students recruited under the initiative are to be designated "Arnold Doctoral Fellows" in recognition of Columbia businessman Norman J. Arnold's gift to the school that now bears his name.

Chandler said each of the school's six departments will receive $50 thousand to be matched "dollar for dollar by grants or departmental funds to attract and support high quality doctoral candidates until they can be transitioned into full time graduate assistants on the multitude of projects ongoing in the school."

The dean estimated that the funds when matched will enable each department to pay tuition and stipend for between three to five doctoral candidates.

That would bring each department's Arnold Fellowship funding to $100 thousand depending on amounts of internal grant/contract monies available within each department. He also hopes to acquire additional matching funds from other USC and community resources. "These endowment monies can be used quite effectively as match against requests from our partners (local and beyond) to help build our Ph.D. support base," said Chandler.