Policies For Student Travel Support

It is critically important that PhD students gain experience vetting their work to external audiences in national and international venues. In addition, it is necessary to network with other leading scholars in your research domain. Academic (and sometimes, other) conferences present an opportune time to do such. For this reason, the PhD Program in Design and Planning makes available a limited pool of funds to defray costs for such travel for students. The guiding philosophy is to better support students presenting at highly select venues. Support is appropriated according to the following guidelines and eligibility criteria:

Priority is placed to support students presenting at academically oriented conferences that will:

(1)  Provide a venue for feedback and interactions among leading research scholars in their domain,

(2)  Directly advance their candidacy for employment upon graduation.

Conferences that fulfill such criteria are to be determined jointly by the student and their primary advisor.

The student’s name MUST be listed as part of a paper being presented.

Domestic conferences (outside of Colorado) will be compensated at a rate of $600 per event. On average, each student is entitled to one conference per year. International or other conferences will be considered and compensated on a case by case basis. A total of $1,800 of travel funds will be made available to students during their entire tenure in the program (we will monitor such appropriations and this total amount is unavailable to be used for a single conference).

Research grants or other eligible sources should always be tapped first. In addition, please be aware that University wide sources might be available; or, many conferences have travel stipends available for students.

In times of limited funds, priority is given to students who are further advanced in the program (e.g., third or fourth year students).

To request financial support to attend a conference, please follow the below steps:

(1) Consult with your primary advisor that the conference for which you are seeking support meets the above criteria.

(2) Send an email to your primary advisor requesting support and detailing the following information:

-name of the conference,

-the location,

-the title of the paper(s)/presentation(s),

-the authors listed on the paper.

(3) The student (or the primary advisor) then forwards the above email (documenting the primary advisor’s endorsement) to the PhD program director and/or PhD program administrative coordinator.

(4) Pending final approval from the Program Director or Administrative Coordinator, s/he will for then correspond with you about next steps (most likely referring you to the travel office in CAP at CU Denver).

Please keep in mind, requests that do not comply with the above criteria will likely not be approved. Thanks and best of luck presenting your scholarly research and gaining exceptional feedback in doing so.

Approved by the PhD Program Faculty (November 21, 2008)