Western's Shannon Point Marine Center Receives Funding to Support Graduate Student Tuition

Two grants funded by the National Science Foundation at Western Washington University’s Shannon Point Marine Center (SPMC) have received $91,000 in supplemental funding to provide tuition support for graduate students.

The funding will be available over the next four years and will cover the tuition costs of students matriculated in the University’s Master’s of Science program in Marine & Estuarine Science.

“These new funds will permit us to provide additional graduate assistantships to deserving students to support their graduate studies,” said SPMC Director Stephen Sulkin.

According to Sulkin, a graduate assistantship typically consists of a salary stipend plus coverage of tuition.  He added: “While a variety of sources can be used to fund the salary component of an assistantship, covering tuition is always a challenge and these new funds will help us address that need.”

Sulkin said that the new funding for graduate students will add to that already provided through federal grants at SPMC, now totaling more than $300,000 in salary, benefits and tuition support.

In exchange for the support, the students will provide assistance to the projects the grants are supporting, as well as general assistance to SPMC’s programs.  The two grants receiving the supplementary funding are the “Multicultural Initiatives in Marine Science: Undergraduate Participation,” now funded at $1,050,000 and the “Dynamic nature of algal symbiosis,” now funded at $467,000.

The Shannon Point Marine Center is a program of Western Washington University located in Anacortes, Wash., whose mission is the support of research and education in the ocean sciences.  More information about SPMC is available at www.wwu.edu/~spmc/.