Funding Opportunities for Current Graduate Students

CCAS is now accepting applications for Dean’s Graduate Conference Travel Grants for the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year (FY18). To be eligible in this round, your travel must end no earlier than April 1, 2018 and no later than June 30, 2018. Funds are no longer available for travel ending earlier.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Overview

CCAS Dean's Graduate Conference Travel Grants provide reimbursement of certain expenses for students who must travel to present, exhibit, or perform at competitive academic conferences. CCAS will offer up to twenty Conference Travel Grants for FY18. Roughly 25% of these grants will be offered in each quarter of the fiscal year (Q1: Jul 1-Sep 30; Q2: Oct 1-Dec 31; Q3: Jan 1-Mar 31; Q4: Apr 1-Jun 30).

Eligibility and Criteria

• Applicants must be in good academic standing in a CCAS graduate degree program at the time of application and throughout the travel period.
• Applicants must travel for the purpose of presenting their own, original work, not that of a faculty member or anyone else. Applicants must be lead authors, principal investigators, artists, or similar.
• Preference is given to students in terminal degree programs (PhD, PsyD, MFA), although students in non-terminal, master’s degree programs are eligible.
• Students enrolled exclusively in graduate certificate programs are ineligible.
• Preference is given to applicants who have never received a travel grant (for research travel or conference travel) from CCAS.
• Grants may be combined with other funds, including departmental travel funds.
• Grants will be awarded by CCAS on a competitive basis. Many eligible applicants will not receive grants.

Restrictions

• Grants may be used only for travel, lodging, and meals, not for other expenses (e.g., equipment, membership fees, etc.).
• At least one destination must be located outside the Capital Beltway.
• No student may receive more than one travel grant (for research travel or conference travel) per fiscal year (July 1–June 30).
• No student may receive more than three CCAS travel grants (for research travel or conference travel) while studying in CCAS.
• Grants are not awarded retroactively (i.e., for travel already begun or completed).
• Travel must end no earlier than April 1, 2018 and no later than June 30, 2018.
• No expenses will be reimbursed if travel ends when the student is no longer pursuing a CCAS degree, either because her final CCAS degree has been awarded at that point or because of termination or withdrawal.
• An expense is eligible for reimbursement only if it is incurred for travel that actually takes place within the travel period specified in the student’s application.

Maximum Grant

• Up to $800 for travel within the continental US
• Up to $1,100 for travel to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe
• Up to $1,400 for travel to Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia

Application Procedure

1. Identify a faculty sponsor who is prepared to speak in detail in support of the application (ordinarily a faculty advisor, program director, or department chair). The dean may contact the sponsor for more information about the application.
2. Complete the online application , including faculty sponsor’s contact information and uploaded acceptance  letter to conference.
3. Applicants will ordinarily be notified within three weeks.

Post-Award Process

1. Grantees are responsible for working with department/program staff to charge travel to the department/program or, if the grantee makes purchases with personal funds, to receive initial reimbursement from the department/program. The department/program may prefer to book travel for the grantee. CCAS will not directly reimburse grantees.
2. Before June 15, 2018, departments/programs should forward the notification email to the CCAS Finance Office at [email protected] to request reimbursement, along with the final amount requested and confirmation that these expenses were actually incurred and have not been reimbursed from other sources. For expenses incurred on or after June 15, 2018, but before July 1, 2018, reimbursement requests should be submitted as soon as possible, but no later than June 30, 2018. CCAS cannot honor requests for reimbursement submitted after these deadlines.
3. As a condition of receiving an award, students are expected to participate in GW Research Days and to present their research in other GW venues, at the request of CCAS.
4. Questions? Please send all questions to the CCAS Office of Graduate Studies at [email protected].

The CCAS Dean’s Graduate Instructorship (DGI) offers exceptional PhD candidates the unique experience of designing and teaching their own undergraduate courses, while obtaining financial support for their dissertation research. Awardees design and teach undergraduate seminars in their areas of expertise, enabling undergraduates to engage intellectually with the cutting-edge research programs of our advanced PhD candidates.

Awardees teach a one-semester course and receive the standard Graduate Assistant salary and stipend in their respective departments (typically $11,500). In addition, the DGI covers required tuition for the semester (up to 9 credits). Fellows whose tuition is covered by external funds receive instead a research fund of $500. Up to three (3) fellowships are awarded each semester.

(This award was previously known as the CCAS Dean’s Graduate Teaching Fellowship.)

Eligibility and Conditions

1. Applicants must be CCAS PhD candidates in residence for their teaching semester;
2. Applicants must be in candidacy (“ABD”) which, in most programs, entails all required coursework completed, qualifying examination passed, and dissertation proposal approved;
3. The DGI may not be deferred;
4. No student may receive more than one DGI while enrolled at GW;
5. Awardees must not have exceeded the eight-year limitation on time to degree in the teaching semester, even if CCAS has granted an extension;
6. Receipt of the DGI increases by one the total number of funded semesters that the awardee should expect to receive as a PhD student at GW, either from internal or external sources;
7. Before preparing an application, candidates should consult their director of graduate studies, director of undergraduate studies, and department chair to assess the interest of the department in the proposed course and to ensure that it meets departmental teaching needs.

Application

Applications are reviewed by a faculty committee. Candidates must complete the online application form. Email and paper submissions are not accepted. The form requires uploading the following documents as a single PDF file:

1. Curriculum vitae
2. Unofficial GW transcript
3. Syllabus based on this GW template.

Students must also request two letters of support:

1. A letter of recommendation (< 1,000 words) from a GW faculty member attesting to the candidate’s promise as a lead instructor and the merits of the proposed course. To request a confidential letter, candidate must share  this recommendation link with the recommender. By sharing the link, candidate agrees to waive their right to access and examine the letter, now or at any time in the future. Candidates who wish to request a non-confidential letter should contact the Office of Graduate Studies for instructions.
2. Letter of support from department chair (< 300 words). Candidate must share  this link with the chair. The letter should include, as appropriate, a specific departmental plan for covering any services the applicant would otherwise provide to the department as a Graduate Assistant during the semester in question, including any financial support that might be required from CCAS to replace the awardee. No applicant will be placed at a competitive disadvantage for the DGI as a result of this information.

Letters emailed or delivered to CCAS will not be considered.

Please remind writers to notify you after submitting letters. CCAS cannot respond to inquiries about missing letters. CCAS will only notify you when your application is complete. Direct questions to the CCAS Office of Graduate Studies at [email protected]

Important Dates

October 3, 2017 - applications accepted for AY2018-19

November 3, 2017 - deadline for complete applications and all supporting materials from candidates applying to teach in Fall 2018

January 26, 2018 - deadline for complete applications and all supporting materials from candidates applying to teach in Spring 2019

CCAS invites eligible PhD candidates to apply for the Dean’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship (DCF). Each DCF includes a stipend equivalent to the normal GA salary and stipend in the respective department for one or two semesters (typically $11,250 per semester), as well as an award of required candidacy tuition for the period of the fellowship. Fellows whose tuition is covered by external funds receive instead a research fund of $500. Four to eight fellowships will be awarded for AY2018-19.

Eligibility and Conditions

1. Applicants must be CCAS PhD candidates in residence for their fellowship semester;
2. Applicants must be in candidacy (“ABD”) which, in most programs, entails all required coursework completed, qualifying examination passed, and dissertation proposal approved;
3. The DCF may not be deferred;
4. No student may receive more than one DCF while enrolled at GW;
5. Awardees must not have exceeded the eight-year limitation on time to degree in the fellowship semester, even if CCAS has granted an extension;
6. Receipt of the DCF increases by one the total number of funded semesters that the awardee should expect to receive as a PhD student at GW, either from internal or external sources.

Application

Candidates must complete the online application form. Email and paper submissions are not accepted. The form requires uploading the following documents, in this order, as a single PDF file:

1. Curriculum vitae
2. Unofficial GW transcript
3. One completed chapter or excerpt from dissertation, which must be in English and be neither the introduction, nor the conclusion, nor the literature review
4. Bibliography (no more than two pages)
5. Up to three additional pages of images, musical scores, or other supporting non-text materials (optional)

Letters of Support:

Candidates must also request two faculty letters of support, one of which must be from the dissertation director.
Each letter must:

• Confirm student’s timeline and likelihood of timely completion;
• Provide a brief description of the dissertation completion expectations for the field;
• Provide a statement regarding where the student's work stands relative to these expectations (e.g., is this a student in advanced candidacy, or someone who has far to go to?);
• Address the originality of the applicant’s work. What is new about it?
• What does it add to the discipline?

To request a confidential letter, candidate must share this recommendation link with the recommender. By sharing the link, candidate agrees to waive their right to access and examine the letter, now or at any time in the future. Candidates who wish to request a non-confidential letter should contact the Office of Graduate Studies for instructions. Letters emailed or delivered to CCAS will not be considered.

Applicants should remind recommenders to notify them after submitting letters. CCAS cannot respond to inquiries about missing letters. CCAS will only notify applicants when the application is complete. Direct questions to the CCAS Office of Graduate Studies at [email protected].

Applications will be reviewed by a faculty committee representing each section of CCAS: social/behavioral sciences, natural sciences, and arts/humanities. Review criteria include the originality and potential impact of the proposed work, the reasonableness of the timeline, and the clarity of writing in the lay abstract.

Important Date

Friday, ​February 23, 2018 - deadline for complete applications and all supporting materials from candidates applying for AY2018-19.

Student recipients will receive funding that can be used to help reimburse payment for professional development opportunities that might be considered cost-prohibitive. For example:

• registration fees for professional conferences in a student’s academic area of interest (not for study abroad fees, acaemic credit opportunities)
• costs associated with specialized training opportunities, portfolio development, research (i.e. survey tool, not used for participant survey compensation), etc.
• business professional attire up to $250 reimbursed

Eligibility

Funds are available for undergraduate and graduate students on a first-come, first-served basis. You must be currently enrolled in a degree-seeking program at GW and your primary designation must be "student" in order to be eligible to submit an application. GWSB students should contact the Fowler Career Center to apply for GWSB-specific funding.

Awards

• Grants are awarded in the form of a reimbursement for up to a maximum of $500spent on eligible activities.
• You can receive the award only once during your academic career at GW. Funding is disbursed in accordance with all applicable federal and university guidelines.
• Activities that will occur after you graduate from your degree program or professional or career development activities that have occurred prior to submitting an application are ineligible for funding.
• If multiple students request funding to attend the same conference, we will fund a maximum of ten (10) students per conference.  Individual awards may be limited, per the discretion of the award review committee, in order to provide a more equitable distribution of funding.
• Funding priority will be given to students who have been selected to present a project or paper at the conference for which they are applying.
• Doctoral students who will not be presenting a project or paper at a conference are ineligible for funding.
• Medical students who are going through any residency interview process are ineligible for funding.
• Residency students through the School of Medicine and Health Sciences are ineligible for funding.
• Opportunities pursued to support a required research project/course (Capstone, Thesis, Dissertation, etc.) are ineligible for funding.
• Opportunities pursued to complete professional development hours (professional enhancement) for degree completion are ineligible for funding.
• Exchange programs at other institutions are ineligible for funding.

Requirements

If you receive an award, you will be required to:

• provide receipts or proof of payment for the eligible activities of which you wish to be reimbursed (e.g., conference or training registration payments, business professional attire up to $250 reimbursed).
• all receipts must have the participant's name listed (i.e. hotel reservations, registration, itemized receipts, etc.).
• write an evaluation statement and brief reflection. The reflection may be used in stewardship materials in the future.
• share your availability for activities (thank you letters, information sessions, donor-recognition events, etc.) to promote the Shenkman Career Services Fund.

If your project or experience will require a security clearance, you must receive the clearance before the grant can be awarded.

You may be required to provide supplementary documentation to verify activities and costs associated with the award. Opportunities outside the United States may be considered - approval of the opportunity through GW Passport must be included with your application.

Impact on Financial Aid Packages

If you receive need-based financial aid and receive this award, your aid package may be impacted. Contact Ruth Hoch, Associate Director of Student Financial Assistance at [email protected] to discuss any potential impact on your aid package. If you are a student in the Law or Medical Schools, please contact the GW Law Financial Aid Office or the SMHS Financial Aid Office for information about how the award may impact your aid package.

Tax Information

U.S. Citizens & Permanent Residents

Your award will be treated as taxable income for federal and state income tax purposes and GW will issue a Form 1099-Misc to U.S. citizens and permanent residents and a corresponding copy to the IRS. Consult with your parents or family and/or a tax advisor for federal and state income tax filing questions. For more information on tax-related issues, please contact the GW Tax Department.

International Students

Depending on your individual circumstances, GW will be required to issue either a Form 1099-Misc or Form 1042-S. Award payments may be subject to 30% direct tax withholding. Contact the GW Tax Department to determine your circumstances.  Be sure to mention the Shenkman Career Services Fund.

Submit an Application

Submit an application through the MyGW portal to be considered for an award.  Applications for the Fall 2017 semester open on August 28, 2017. All applications must be received no later than December 1, 2017, for the Fall 2017 semester. For opportunities in the Spring/ Summer 2018 semesters, please submit all applications no later than May 1, 2018. Please note the following:

• Applications will be reviewed on a weekly basis, please allow enough time for application review prior to the start of your professional development opportunity.
• Although applications may be submitted by a certain date, the awarding of funding is determined on a rolling basis and is not guaranteed.
• There is no guarantee that a submitted application will be granted an award.

Opportunities Abroad

If the professional and career development opportunity meets the other eligibility requirements, international opportunities are eligible for support through the PCDG.  Students are required to complete the International Travel Approval Process and purchaseGeoBlue, GW's international health insurance.  Students must upload the acceptance email received from OIP with their materials.

About the Shenkman Career Services Fund

The Shenkman Career Services Fund augments and advances the goal of the university’s Career Services Enhancement Initiative to strengthen the overall career culture at GW.  Through a generous donation made by Board of Trustees Emeritus Mark R. Shenkman, M.B.A. ‘67, and his wife Rosalind, these grants will provide opportunities for GW undergraduate and graduate students to engage in career and professional development activities.