Apply for the GSG GRANT APPLICATION!

The purpose of graduate student grant (GSG) is to offer additional support to graduate students’ professional development and research. 

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GSG can be used to pay for:

• Costs of presenting at a conference, including travel, accommodation, and registration. 

• Costs of conducting research. Any research expense that is related to a degree requirement or career advancement is an allowable expense. Two types of expenses explicitly not covered by the GSG are human subjects compensation (e.g. for psychology experiments or ethnographic data collection) and laboratory equipment (e.g. consumables like test tube).

Eligibility     

• Graduate student currently enrolled in a graduate degree granting program.

• Conference attended must be in the applicant’s academic field, or in a closely related field.

A Checklist for a Complete Application

1. A description of the significance of conducting research or presenting at the conference to your career.

2. A confirmation letter for the conference presentation and/or an endorsement letter from your research advisor.

3. An updated CV.

4. Documents relevant for purchases if your application is approved.

Application Deadlines

• Spring semester: March 8th

• Summer semester: May 24th

• Applicants are expected to hear back from the selection committee approximately one month after the deadline.

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Selection Criteria

1. The primary consideration in awarding a grant is the importance of presenting at conferences or conducting research to the student’s degree or career. An ideal applicant will be conducting research that will help them to complete/advance their research or to go on the job market. Similarly, an ideal applicant is presenting dissertation research at a venue where they can receive substantive feedback that will help them advance in the career.

2. Applications should demonstrate a strong need for funding. Given the limited budget and large number of applicants, please list the sources of funding that might reasonably be available to you, and explain why they cannot meet your needs.

3. The committee considers applications from many disciplines. While it is important to describe your research and its importance clearly, avoid overly technical descriptions.

4. A conference in another discipline, or one that draws an interdisciplinary audience, may be appropriate if the student's research incorporates elements or methodologies from another field.

Funding Limits

• Each GSGs shall be limited to $400 in academic year 2019-2020.

• Each Graduate student shall be limited to one GSG per fiscal year.

• GSGs can only be funded from the budget of the fiscal year in which they occur.

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Funding Process Graph

BFC Best Practice on EFR

1. Religious events cannot be funded as these events do not encourage all graduate student participation and target specific graduate student groups.

2. The applicant GSO must show concerted effort to be inclusive of the graduate student body outside of their own organization through publicity and outreach prior to GSG funded events, as outlined clearly in EFRs.

3. We encourage events on or near campus where all graduate students can participate.

4. Gifts or prizes for guests, speakers or students or any capital expenditure for events are prohibited to fund by the GSG bylaws.

5. EFR approved fund can also not be used to pay for bottle water and decoration.

6. All the items for decorations are not eligible for funding.

7. The amount for food over $10 per graduate student will be accepted based on the GSO event situation and GSG EFR budget scenario.

8. Educational or professional development events, especially those that appeal to a large portion of the graduate student population and encourage cross-disciplinary interaction, are given preference.

9. Organizations who fail to abide by the best practices or provide fraudulent information be barred from applying for event funding for one year (starting from the data when the gaming behaviors are detected).

10. Applicant GSOs must declare all members who are also members of the GSG General Assembly and GSG BFC to avoid conflict of interest and maintain the BFC’s integrity.

11. Any members of BFC affiliated to the GSO in any particular way must declare themselves in the beginning and excuse themselves from the discussion. This helps the BFC maintain its integrity.

12. GSOs must include the event sign-up sheet and at least a photo with the event and GSG sign in their post-event report.

13. A member who has three unexcused absence from the evaluation of EFRs, or who is absent, whether excused or unexcused, from evaluations of EFRs for five times, may be removed from the committee.

14. A member, who has not participated in the evaluation of event funding requests after five calendar days of the first email notice, will be considered absent for the discussion of EFRs. Based on the number of reported and de facto absences, Chair of BFC shall recalculate and update committee members with the threshold for a majority passage of an EFR.

15. BFC can only approve EFR at or below 5 percent of the amount allocated to EFR ($800). An EFR above 5 percent must to be approved by the assembly which occur every month from September to June.

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