The Graduate School makes financial support available to graduate students through a set number of graduate assistantships (GAs), which are distributed among the various graduate programs at New Mexico State University. The Graduate School sets the criteria for basic eligibility for assistantships.

CMI’s Creative Writing program makes every effort to provide eligible graduate students with financial support in the form of teaching assistantships when students request such consideration in their applications. In their personal statements and in the supporting materials of their applications, prospective students should offer evidence of their preparation for teaching.

Applying for an Assistantship

Typically, the deadline to apply for a Graduate Assistantship must be submitted as part of the application in SLATE by February 1. The deadline for the 2024-2025 academic year has been extended to February 21, 2024. 

All applications for assistantship support should include a statement of teaching interest, should be addressed to the Creative Writing Faculty, and should provide, and ddiscuss any experiences that you believe would be relevant to have prepared you for teaching writing, such as working as an assistant, tutoring, editing, or volunteer work. Discuss what you believe students of writing(fiction or poetry) should learn. Reflecting on your own learning method, how might you approach reaching a student like yourself? Given the opportunity to teach writing, you could talk about which of your favorite authors you would like to teach, and what these authors could offer your future students. The standard assistantship is for 6 consecutive semesters.