Graduate Summer Scholarship Standing Rules, Summer 2015
A. Funding History
1. The Graduate Summer Scholarship (GSS) is a need and merit-based scholarship
designed to help support students who are nearing the end of their academic
programs and taking Summer classes in order to expedite their program’s
completion.
2. The GSS’s quasi-endowment is held by the University Foundation on behalf of
GPSA.
B. Activities Funded
1. Acceptable costs for the GSS include:
a. Tuition and fees for summer classes.
Unacceptable costs include:
a. Living Expenses
b. Costs that could be funded through a GPSA grant, including conference
travel or research-related expenses.
C. Amount of Funding
1. The GSS awards $1,000 a semester per awardee, regardless of the tuition
differential for the applicant’s program.
2. A student may receive the scholarship for a maximum of one (1) semester.
D. Deadlines
1. The deadline for application submission shall follow the deadlines of the
semester’s grant cycle.
2. No late applications will be accepted.
3. Notice of any change to the deadline shall be posted in accordance with GPSA
Transparency and Public Notice Requirements.
E. Applicant Eligibility
1. Only GPSA members are eligible to apply for the award.
2. Applicants must be within 15 hours of completing their program of study. Ad-hoc
exceptions are made for Law, Pharmacy and Medical School students, as they do
not use the ‘hours’ system.
3. Doctoral candidates are eligible to apply for the scholarship in order to pay for
dissertation hours.
4. Applicants must be registered for Summer classes when the scholarship is
awarded.
5. Courses paid for with the GSS must be required for completion of the student’s
academic program.
6. Applicants must have a minimum GPA of 3.0.
F. Application Requirements
1. Applications must be submitted before the deadline and meet the above
requirements.
2. Applications must be the original words of the student and not the words of any
other person.
a.
Plagiarism is prohibited. Any student submitting plagiarized work will be
disqualified.
b.
If an applicant uses another person’s words then they must be in quotation
marks.
A complete GSS application includes:
a.
Identifying information (created from user profile on GPSA grants
website).
b.
A student statement not to exceed seven hundred (700) words explaining
how the scholarship will contribute toward the completion of the degree
sought, why it is significant for the applicant’s education and how taking
Summer classes will advance the applicant’s degree completion. The
statement should address all points of the current GSS score sheet.
c.
A letter of recommendation from the student’s advisor, department chair,
or professor within student’s department stating the student is in good
academic standing. The letter of recommendation should reinforce the
student’s academic/career goals as well has how taking Summer classes
will help the applicant achieve those goals.
d.
A statement from the student’s academic advisor stating that:
i. The student is within 15 hours of completing their academic
program.
ii. The student is registered for Summer classes.
iii. The classes being taken during the Summer term, being paid for by
the GSS, must be required for completion of the student’s
academic program.
.
No materials besides those above and those required by the committee shall be
accepted.
Applications must adhere to the committee’s instructions.
At the discretion of the Grants Chair, applications may be disqualified if the
requirements outlined are not met.
G. Applicant Outreach
1. The Grants Committee will make a good faith attempt to contact departments to
advertise the scholarship and offer departmental workshops.
2. The GSS will be advertised at least twenty-one (21) calendar days before the
deadlines on the GPSA website and electronic mailing list.
H. Application Evaluation
1. Student must prove to be within fifteen (15) hours of degree completion for the
written proposal to be scored.
2. The written proposal will be graded based on the following rubric:
a.
40% of the final score will be based on the background information
needed for the applicant’s GSS proposal.
b.
20% of the final score will be based on how the scholarship will be
beneficial to the applicant in completing their academic program.
c.
20% of the final score will be based on the overall composition of the
applicant’s proposal.
d.
15% of the final score will be based on the inclusion of a valid Letter of
Recommendation from a qualified individual listed above.
e.
5% of the final score will be based on the inclusion of a valid statement
from the student’s academic advisor stating the information specified
above.
f.
The GSS will not have an appeals process.
I. Application Funding Procedure
1. Awards shall be allocated in a $1,000 increment.
2. The number of awards will be decided by the Grants Committee based on the
GSS’s yearly budget allocation.
3. The Grants Committee may recommend that funds remain in the quasiendowment to earn interest and secure the long-term viability of the scholarship
program.
4. The Grants Committee shall notify each applicant of the committee's decision
within six (6) weeks of the application deadline.
a.
In the event of unforeseen or extraordinary circumstances, the Grants
Chair may notify applicants at a later time.
Funds not claimed within the thirty (30) days of award notification revert to the
GSS.
J. Records
1. The committee shall keep records of:
a.
all applications;
b.
scores and score comment sheets
c.
a database of cover sheet information (such as name, email, department)
and score results;
d.
a separate record of to whom and when the award was given
2. All records should be in non-obsolete digital format, passed on to the next Grants
Committee and kept for a minimum of five years.
3. All applicants will have access to their files and scores but not to the applications
of others, in accordance with applicable state and federal law.
K. Reports
1. The committee shall compose a report for each funding cycle.
2. The report shall contain the total amount of scholarships awarded.
3. The report shall contain a breakdown of awards and applications by college,
school, or department.
4. The report shall provide details of the total awards and the balance.
L. Claiming Awards
1. To claim an award, a recipient must return a signed award form, provided online,
to the GPSA Office within fourteen (14) days of the award notification. Otherwise
funds will revert to the GSS.