Funding for Student Travel
I received the following letter from an undergraduate English major, and share it with you because I do not have the funds in my budget to assist. I place the request on this blog in the hope that one of our readers might be interested in supporting these students. Please contact me directly (jjcohen[at]gwu.edu) if you’d like to hear what the budget is, and how you can help.
———–
Dear Professor Cohen,
I am writing on behalf of the members of English 179, a class on Queer and Transnational Film Studies that will travel to the Czech Republic in November for the Prague International LGBTQ Film Festival.
The course and its contingent trip are exciting opportunities for a group of motivated GW students to explore a range of issues involving sexuality and film. In addition to attendance at the film festival, our activities in Prague will include participation in a joint class with similarly-focused Czech students, a cross-cultural exchange that we anticipate to be invaluable to our collective growth and to our individual ability to contribute worthwhile academic thinking on queer and transnational issues as mediated through film. Ideally, each student’s journey will inform a publishable paper on some aspect of our studies to be presented at a one-day conference the class will give at the end of the semester.
Unfortunately, due to the high cost of international travel, several students would be unable to fully participate in the course without some degree of financial aid. So I write to you with the hope that the English Department might be able to invest in this energized and talented group of students and its pursuit of a higher understanding in an important field.
I have attached a tentative budget for the trip. Whatever aid or leads on possible scholarship opportunities the English Department could provide would be thoroughly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Reed Cooley
