Both Duke University and the Sociology Department provide excellent support for students' academic and professional needs. A full-time staff of three computer professionals maintains departmental computers and provides technical assistance to students and professors. Computers in every office and our Social Sciences Computer Cluster provide ready access to the electronic and computing resources students need, while the department's Unix systems give students powerful tools for data processing and management. Combined with the numerous electronic resources available through Duke University Libraries' web pages (most articles in the major journals, and many minor ones, can be accessed electronically), the computing services offered by our department rival any in the discipline.

As mentioned, our department provides generous financial support to its graduate students, including a first-year (work-free) stipend and numerous teaching and research opportunities in later years. During the summer, most students find work with Duke professors; the University itself has recently commited itself to providing summer funding for all of its students. Our department encourages all students to be active professionally, seeking outside research funding and teaching opportunities. Students who are past their preliminary examinations (3rd year and later) can receive travel funding for conferences, and the department will often help pay for first and second-year students to attend professional meetings as well.

Each student is provided office space on campus in the Sociology-Psychology building. Each office has file space and bookcases, as well as computers for easy access to the Duke and Sociology system.

Duke also benefits from its close proximity to UNC and NC State. Each year, several of our students take advantage of the opportunity to enroll in classes at UNC, and UNC students quite often take classes with Duke professors. UNC professors can serve on dissertation committees for Duke students. UNC libraries are also completely accessible to graduate students, either through Inter-Library Loan (in which numerous other universities participate) or through direct check-outs.

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