Typically, students spend their entire first year and fourth years of the program on full fellowship to promote academic excellence as students complete their first year milestones, and begin their dissertation research.
For the other years, as part of the funding package offered, Graduate Students will be assigned to some combination of Teaching Assistantship, Research Assistantship, or Graduate Assistantship.
Teaching Assistantships
- Teaching is an essential element of the education and training experience of PhD students at Northwestern. The Graduate School requires that all PhD students serve in some instructional capacity for at least one academic quarter during their graduate education at Northwestern. This teaching requirement is an integral aspect of professional development. The Graduate School’s expectation is that students’ teaching work be comparable to that of other students within their program, and that teaching demands are as similar as possible across academic programs.
Teaching assistants are mentored by department faculty. Additionally, training for teaching assistants is available through Northwestern University’s Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, which offers consultation, workshops, and conferences specifically geared toward graduate student teaching assistants.
Students assigned to teaching assistantships may have the opportunity to serve as TAs or main instructors of one of the department’s undergraduate courses, PERF_ST 103 “Analysis and Performance of Text,” or PERF_ST 203 “Performance, Culture, and Communication.” In later years of study, graduate students may propose and teach a course of their own design as the sole professor of record.
Examples of graduate student designed courses include:
- Lana Del Rey: Feelingscapes of U.S. Settler Colonialism (Madeleiene Le Cesne)
- Latina/o Performance (Gabriel Guzman)
- Disturbance, Disaster, Perspectives on Abrupt Change (Greg Manuel)
“I’d say the biggest thing for me has been teaching towards the interests of my students. I’m really lucky that I’ve had a chance to teach several of them two and three times. With each class, they’ve had their friends enroll as well, so we’ve made a nice little community. The aesthetic objects I research have almost nothing to do with the aesthetic objects I teach in class, but I use the same theory. I find that by teaching the aesthetic objects my students care about, the more trust we’re able to build.”
Madeleine Le Cesne
“Having the opportunity to work as a TA/instructor during my graduate studies at Northwestern has helped me hone my skills as a future educator. Teaching in Performance Studies provides an opportunity to work with undergraduate students from various academic departments, promoting productive dialogue across disciplines, behaviors, and ways of thinking.
One of the things I will love about teaching Performance, Culture, and Communication is that it allows students from highly structured departments to think more freely and through a subjective lens. They often think of it as a fun escape from their home departments, but what I find most evident is that it allows students to discover and share their voices and experiences.”
Toni Kunst
Research Assistantships
Research Assistantships are opportunities to work closely with a devoted faculty member in whatever capacity they see fit. In the past, RAs have helped faculty with publication of manuscripts, preliminary research for new projects, convene performances and academic conferences, and more!
“Working as an RA provided a unique experience in professional research, as it allowed me to understand the logistics and tasks of archival research and the publication process under the guidance of a full-time faculty member. Many students have the opportunity to assist full-time faculty members during their publication process and can network with editors, collections, and publishing houses.”
Toni Kunst
“I very much enjoyed co-convening Object Relations with Prof. Josh Chambers-Letson and Prof. Lakshmi Padmanabhan during the 2022–2023 academic year as Josh’s RA.”
Daisy Matias
“During my time as an RA, I had the opportunity to learn about Prof. Ayobade’s second book project and compiled a bibliography that collated books, journal articles, videos, and artworks addressing the topic (petrocultures).”
Archita Arun
“As Prof. Blanco Borelli’s RA, I learned about the ending stages of publication, specifically when advancing a manuscript into book form. I formatted endnotes according to the publisher’s specifications, wrote alternate text for images, and was the first person other than the peer-reviewers to read the manuscript in its entirety!”
Michael Landez
“Co-convening the first Afrobeats Conference in 2023 as Professor Ayobade’s RA was both a powerful and intellectually generative experience. It was also a meaningful learning moment in collaborative leadership. Working closely with Professor Ayobade deepened my understanding of how to hold space for community-rooted knowledge within institutional frameworks, and how to center African cultural production with rigor and respect. One of the most striking aspects of the conference was the diversity of approaches to Afrobeats as a sonic form, a political archive, a site of gendered negotiation, and a globalized movement. The dialogues that emerged around ownership, representation, and cultural hybridity were critical and urgent. The conference not only celebrated Afrobeats’ global reach but served as a scholarly intervention that honored the genre’s complexity and historical depth. The experience also catalyzed new pathways for research and collaboration. One such outcome was the co-authorship of a journal article titled “Monsters You Made”: Burna Boy, #EndSARS, and the Use of Restlessness (2024), published in The Black Scholar. This piece emerged directly from the conference’s conversations and reflects the ways in which Afrobeats can be engaged as a lens for understanding contemporary Black resistance and expressive politics.”
Olabanke Goriola
Graduate Assistantships
Graduate Assistantships often center administrative skills including tasks like social media maintenance, website management, prospective student event planning, and recruitment.
Graduate Assistantships may also include being tasked as the curator/organizer of the Graduate Student Conference. The two most recent conferences have included: Aesthetics of Race (2024) and In Motion: Performance and Unsettling Borders (2018).
“Chairing the graduate student conference, Aesthetics of Race, is definitely the most memorable and fulfilling GA experiences I’ve had to date. it gave me the rare opportunity to not only rally and collaborate with students from our department from across the various cohorts, but also form meaningful relationships beyond PS. The experience also allowed me to gain practical administrative and organizing skill sets that academic work often entail.”
Clara Lee
“In my third year, I worked with the (then) Director of Undergraduate Studies, Shayna Silverstein, to help design the PS brochure for undergraduate students. In addition to developing these materials, I also spoke with current NU students about course offerings by the department. As a GA, I was also in charge of reaching out to alumni of the department to gather data about how different students apply their PS degrees in industry.”
Archita Arun