Graduate Program
Financial Aid
The MacCracken financial aid package is a 5-year plan that provides students with fellowship assignments for 2 years and teaching assistantship assignments for 3 years. The GSAS allows the law and society program to assign students to fellowship or teaching assistantships each year based on the needs of the program. However, the law and society program prefers to take student preferences into account when making fellowship and teaching assignments each year. Each spring the graduate assistant sends graduate students eligible for financial aid a form asking them to specify whether they prefer a fellowship or a teaching assistantship for the coming year. Students are usually granted their preference for the type of assignment (fellowship or teaching) in the coming year. However, students are not always given their preferences for the faculty members they wish to assist in teaching. Once students have sent in their request forms for the types of assignments for the coming year, they are not allowed to change preferences unless they receive alternative sources of funding such as grants.
The law and society DGS assigns students with teaching assistantship assignments to faculty teaching courses for the law and society undergraduate minor in the College of Arts and Science (CAS). Students must be assigned to faculty teaching courses sponsored by the CAS and may not be assigned to faculty teaching courses for the school of law. Because teaching assignments involve sensitive negotiations between the DGS in law and society, the directors of graduate studies and chairs of various departments and programs as well as administrators in the Morse Academic Program and Freshman Seminar Program, students should not solicit faculty or departments about their teaching assignments. The DGS consults with students before making teaching assistantship assignments. During these consultations students may communicate their preferences for particular courses and/or faculty. However, it is not always possible to assign students to the courses and professors they prefer.
While not required, students are given the opportunity to use one MacCracken teaching assistantship semester to teach a stand-alone course. Students must serve as a teaching assistantship before teaching a stand-along course and typically do so in the later stages of their graduate career. Students typically teach the introductory Law and Society course or the Topics in Law and Society course for the undergraduate minor in law and society. Many students coordinate taking the written law and society field with teaching the Law and Society course. When teaching the Topics in Law and Society course, students can choose the topic. Thus, some students teach the topic of their dissertation or the subfield of their oral law and society subfield exam. Students pursuing an academic career often find this option useful since it provides valuable teaching experience, increases their prospects on the academic job market and provides them with a prepared course when beginning their first academic position.
GSAS Financial Aid: http://www.gsas.nyu.edu/page/grad.financialaid.html
GSAS Admissions andApplication: http://gsas.nyu.edu/page/grad.admissions
Law Admissions and Application: http://www.law.nyu.edu/prospective