ONE DAY. ONE KU. International Affairs Advisory Board Challenge
Mark your calendars! On February 20th, 2019, we have 24 hours to raise funds that can transform the lives of KU students and enhance the University’s engagement with the world. Your unrestricted gift on ONE DAY. ONE KU. in support of the KU International Affairs Advisory Board challenge creates access for students to study abroad, provides emergency funds for international students in crisis, and supports graduate student research. The following are the three funding priorities that raised funds will be used to support. A gift of any size will greatly enhance our ability to bring KU to the world and the world to KU.
Create access to study abroad
The Global Scholars Program emphasizes intercultural learning opportunities, faculty-mentored research, and career development. Your gift of unrestricted support provides scholarships for high-achieving and globally minded Jayhawks to study abroad, without limiting funding support to a specific region, language of study, or major. These gifts enable Global Scholars to pursue their research interests and create access to competitive job markets in the U.S. and abroad.
Global Scholar alumna Sarah McCabe used her Global Scholars scholarship to spend a semester in England. Her research project explored the growing dark themes in young adult literature within the global context, and her experiences as a Global Scholar helped her to land a job in publishing. As the Associate Editor at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, she now develops projects for children around the world.
Help students in crisis
Living far away from family, friends, and your support network is always a challenge, and in an emergency, students may not have access to funds to help them in crisis. This is especially true for international Jayhawks, as political movements, fluctuating currencies, and family situations can significantly affect a student’s ability to thrive at KU. Your gift of unrestricted funds will provide the emergency loans and grants critical to our students in a time of personal crisis so that they can continue to work toward earning their degrees at KU.
Iraqi student Sarmad Majeed was able to continue his studies with the help of KU financial support. Just after arriving in Lawrence, a serious earthquake hit his hometown. The earthquake destroyed his family home and his family, having lost almost everything, was unable to provide financial support for him to continue his studies. KU International Support Services (ISS) collaborated with the KU School of Law to delay or waive fees, and KU ISS provided small amounts of financial support to help with living expenses. Majeed will graduate with his law degree this May.
Help graduate students define their international research projects
KU International Affairs strives to support international research. Frequently, a small amount of “seed” funding goes a long way in helping a graduate student develop a research project. In recognizing the funding needs for preliminary dissertation field activities, KU International Affairs created $1000 grants for doctoral students. These grants support the exploration of potential research sites, archives and other research resources, the establishment of institutional affiliations, and initial contact with local scholars and contacts. In 2018, KU International Affairs awarded six doctoral students grants to support field research in subjects that span KU’s schools and academic fields.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate student Camille Delavaux used this grant to travel to Ecuador to research soil pathogens and plant restoration in the Galapagos. This research helped her develop a competitive Fulbright application, and she received a Fulbright award to continue her research.
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies student Mariah Crystal used her KUIA grant to develop local connections and identify potential oral history subjects in Tanzania in preparation for her dissertation research, and has since been named a 2018-2019 doctoral research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Social Research.
