After two years of preparation, the Tufts Office of GraduateStudies is close to endowing its Graduate Student Research Fund,giving it permanent status on campus.
The fund will provide financial backing for "research,chemicals, subjects or anything else that people need that theycan't get from their department or advisor," according to RobinKanarek, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
The Fund is currently financed through the University operatingbudget, which means that it could be jeopardized should anotherarea of the budget demand more funding.
The Fund must become officially endowed to have its own sourceof income and become a permanent program on campus.
Sponsors of the Fund are two-thirds of the way toward their goalof $25,000 in order to endow the fund through alumni and facultydonations.
Once the $25,000 is raised, the interest on the endowment willbe used to fund the program.
The Fund, which offers grants of $500 or less to graduatestudents in the Schools of Arts, Sciences and Engineering, isexpected to be established by the end of this academic year.
The Graduate School will use the Fund to increase the number ofgrants it offers during the year, now funded with money from itsown budget.
Graduate students' search for finances to support their academicand professional goals is an often difficult and ongoingprocess.
Many become teaching assistants, and receive funding from withinthe University, or research assistants, who apply for fundingthrough grants to outside sources.
Though all graduate students are eligible for the grants,regardless of their department or subject, the fund will likelyprove particularly useful for students in the arts andhumanities.
These students typically receive less research funding thantheir counterparts in engineering and the sciences, who oftenbenefit from outside grants via their professors' research.
In disciplines with less external support available, studentsoften must fund their own research expenses.
The Fund will also forward students' professional development,Associate Dean of Graduate Education Vincent Manno said. "For manyof these graduate students, that review process will be acontinuing presence in their careers," he said.
To apply for a grant, graduate students must submit proposalsoutlining the details of their research and their expenses duringone of two review periods in the academic year, one during the falland another in the spring.
A committee comprised of faculty and fellow graduate studentsreads over the proposals and selects awards funding toapproximately 10 to 12 proposals each semester.
Proposals rejected on the first try and improved by post-reviewconstructive criticism may be accepted upon re-submission.
The grants are generally not distributed in cash payments.Instead, students submit vouchers or receipts from their researchexpenses and are later reimbursed by the school.
"This formal program has gone on for two years now and I thinkit's been very successful," Manno said.
"It's funded students from all sorts of disciplines, from arthistory and child development to biology and chemical engineering,"he said. "We dedicate money to this purpose because it's importantand worthwhile to give money to more students."
