A $100,000 student travel fund created by School of Education (SoE) Dean Marcelle Haddix and launched by the Office of Research and Scholarship (ORS) in late October is seeing strong participation. Students can apply to receive up to $1,500 each for travel to an academic conference where they will be a presenter or co-presenter.
In only eight weeks, 54 students across all 10 SoE academic departments have been awarded grants totaling $76,500. The most popular request has been to attend the 2026 American Education Research Association (AERA) conference in April.
“These funds are important, particularly for graduate students, because student travel is often the first category eliminated when there are funding cuts,” said Associate Dean for Research Dorothy Farrar Edwards. “Professional conferences are important for graduate students for finding jobs, post-doctoral fellowships, or other funding opportunities.”
Dean Haddix decided to budget for a student travel fund after learning that many SoE students had invitations to present work at prestigious conferences that might go wasted due to a critical shortage of travel funds amid widespread federal grant reductions and general budget reductions.
For Thomas Casey, a fifth-year PhD candidate in kinesiology, the travel fund will help him present and receive feedback on his preliminary dissertation research at a conference. Casey, who is studying undergraduate kinesiology curricula, is traveling to Atlanta, Georgia, in January 2026 to attend the Annual Leadership Workshop of the American Kinesiology Association, where he will present a poster on his research project, titled “What Does It Mean to Hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology?”
Casey expected to benefit from the conference in multiple ways, including the connections he planned to make with directors of undergraduate kinesiology programs from across the country that could become part of his dissertation study.
“The conference theme, ‘Student Success and the Student Experience,’ aligns directly with the aims of my dissertation project, making it an ideal venue for both scholarly engagement and participant recruitment,” said Casey.
For undergraduates, research-related travel funding has always been scarce. The two undergraduates who have received grants from the fund so far are Marissa Stolt from the Dance Department and Yuwen Yang from the Department of Theatre and Drama.
Yang attended the annual conference of the American Society for Theatre Research in November 2025 in Denver, Colorado, where he presented a paper on the motivations and impacts of a recent turn to bilingualism in Chinese International Students Theatre (CIST) on U.S. campuses. The paper is part of his larger undergraduate thesis project researching CIST from 1910 to the present.
“The conference also allowed me to explore the general field of theater and performance studies and learn about the newest research in other areas of study. I’ve also established some relationships with graduate students and professors who work in similar fields of my own research, and we have been exchanging some ideas through email since the conference,” said Yang. “The funding covered most of the expenses. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to go to the conference.”
Stolt attended the professional Cleveland Dance Festival in November 2025 in Cleveland, Ohio. Stolt’s dance work titled “Highlight,” which she choreographed as part of the Dance Department’s H’Doubler Concert in April 2025, was accepted to be performed at the professional conference.
Stolt is now using conference feedback to strengthen “Highlight” for an invited performance at an American College Dance Association (ACDA) conference next year.
“We got to watch other incredible work and present alongside university professors and recognized dance companies,” said Stolt. “I got to watch my piece from the audience and hear unfiltered reactions from people who didn’t know me, which sparked ideas I’m now shaping for ACDA. Since the piece is site-specific, trying it in a new space also helped the dancers get a better sense of how it might feel on the ACDA stage.”
Stolt also said her student travel fund grant was impactful in enabling her small group to attend the Cleveland festival.
“It let us travel safely and without the stress of extra costs that can be a big barrier for undergraduates,” said Stolt. “We had planned to leave at 4 a.m. the day of our dress rehearsal to avoid paying for a hotel, but the fund let us break up the drive and arrive rested. That helped the dancers and me fully participate in classes, connect with dancers and choreographers from across the country, and really enjoy the festival.”
Funds remain available for travel grants, which can be used to pay for air or ground transportation to conferences as well as associated expenses, such as lodging, conference registration and meals.
The Office of Research and Scholarship, in cooperation with the Dean’s Office, is administering the travel grant fund, which will accept applications until the funds run out. More information about the fund, including eligibility criteria and how to apply, is available on the Administrative Services website.