Dean's Message | Graduate School | SIU

A wise person once told me that my graduate school years would be some of the best of my life. My own experience proved them to be correct. I am pleased that you have chosen to explore the opportunities that we offer here at Southern Illinois University Carbondale to provide your training during this special time. I'm confident that you'd find your graduate experience here to be challenging and rewarding, and would posture you well for your later career.

We are ranked by the Carnegie Foundation as a Research University (high research activity), which places us among the top 4% of public US institutions for research.  We offer over 60 master’s and 30 doctoral programs, representing every major academic disciplinary area.  Our faculty and students conduct research on every continent in the world, exemplifying our goal for graduates to know no bounds.  More than 4,000 students from throughout the United States and over 90 other countries pursue these degrees in nine colleges and schools.  US News and World Report ranks us in the top 100 Graduate Schools among public universities in the US.  The St. Louis Business Journal ranks us in the top three of research universities in the Missouri and southern Illinois region.

Our programs are cutting edge, and include a new and innovative Professional Science Master's degree in Advanced Energy and Fuels Management and an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program in Watershed Science and Policy. The IGERT program is supported by a $3M grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Our graduate student body is 52 percent women, 24 percent international and, historically, among the top 50 in students from underserved groups. Over 50 percent are funded by teaching, research, and administrative assistantships, or fellowships. These awards carry a very competitive stipend and a full tuition waiver for both in-state and out-of-state students.

SIU graduate students compete with the best anywhere. Many have won prestigious fellowships from agencies such as the Fulbright Foundation, NSF, and EPA. In the last 10 years, three of our students have won the prestigious Outstanding Thesis Award from the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools, which has 150 member schools, affirming the high quality of our students and the quality personal mentoring of our excellent faculty. Annually our students are selected to join the 75-member US team to attend the Lindau meeting of Nobel Laureates, and much more. These and other accolades affirm our motto that we have the brains of a nationally ranked research university but the heart of a small college.

I look forward to seeing you here in the future, as we provide you an academic experience that will take you as far as you want to go!