Tuesday, December 7, 2010

IDS: 14 graduate students receive fall travel scholarships

By Claire Aronson | IDS Reports
Dec. 6, 2010

The Graduate and Professional Student Organization recently awarded 14 travel awards to full-time graduate and professional students. Six $500 awards and eight $250 awards were given to the winners — chosen out of about 140 applicants this semester.

The winners were chosen by an independent panel of graduate students not affiliated with GPSO, Angela Jones, GPSO communications coordinator, said.

“We tend to always get a good breadth of winners,” Jones said. “GPSO knows that travel is an important part to a graduate student’s career.”

GPSO presents travel awards in both the fall and spring semesters, Jones said, and the money must be used for academic travel purposes, which include present work or participation in a conference or audition. Spring award applications will be available online in January.

“It has to be for something really integral and specific to their career, and they need to show why they need to be there,” Jones said.

GPSO has increased the amount of recipients throughout the past several years, she said.

“It is a really great service that other organizations aren’t really doing,” Jones said.
Kevin Guidry, GSPO awards officer, said there were 41 members of the panel this semester.

“They did a great job, and I think the results came out pretty well,” he said.

GPSO typically receives a lot more applicants from graduate students in the social sciences and humanities than the physical sciences because there is less funding available for the humanities, Guidry said.

“This is reflective in the winners this semester,” he said.

http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=78904