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Description and Purpose: Southern Connecticut State University recognizes the importance of student and faculty scholarship and creative activity in furthering its mission. The University is committed to expanding the array of support mechanisms for such scholarship and creative activity. The Conference Travel Grants for Students program aims to provide graduate and undergraduate students with funds to support travel costs and/or registration fees for national or international conferences, and for regional conferences for undergraduate students only, whether held virtually or in person, for the purpose of presenting their scholarship. Proposals from students who wish to attend a conference without presenting their own work will not be considered for funding.  Proposals from students who are presenting another person's work, i.e. the abstract submitted to the conference was written for another scholar's work will not be considered for funding.  Priority will be given to proposals from students whose work demonstrates a high probability of resulting in a scholarly outcome, such as a published manuscript or other relevant scholarly or creative representation aligned with their discipline (e.g., art exhibition, book contract).

Eligibility: Matriculated graduate or undergraduate students (both full and part time), whose conference proposal has already been accepted by the conference organizers, are eligible to apply for this support. The student proposer must have written and submitted the conference abstract in order to present their own work.

• • Faculty cannot be the lead author. 
  • Student presenter must be the first or second author.  If two students are on one panel, they cannot get full funding but will have to split the award amount.
  • No more than two students for one paper or poster will be allowed.
  • Student must have completed at least one semester at SCSU.
  • FT faculty may not apply for these funds even if they are enrolled as a Graduate Student.
  • PT faculty who are enrolled in a graduate program at SCSU may apply for AAUP travel funds or for a student travel grant, but not both.

Review Process: Applications will be reviewed by the University-wide Research and Scholarship Advisory Committee (RSAC). These grants are sponsored by the Office of the Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Deans. Students with other concurrent funding must disclose their funding.

Faculty Mentor Certification Consent: As per the current guidelines, I understand that the student must be presenting on their own scholarship and that requests to present on another individual’s work will not be considered. 

Award Amount: Matriculated graduate students may apply for up to $1,000 for a national conference or up to $1,500 per international conference, depending on the budget submitted.  Undergraduate students may apply for up to $500 for a national conference, and for regional conferences (registration fees only). Funds for both graduate and undergraduate students may be applied only toward the costs of registration, transportation, and hotel room expenses, as applicable. For undergraduate regional conferences, funding is limited to registration fees only. All travel must abide by regulations of the CDC and CT Department of Health as they exist at time of travel.  Funds may not be used for faculty travel expenses. 

For virtual conferences: Matriculated graduate or undergraduate students may apply for up to but not more than the cost of registration for a virtual conference.  Funds may not be used for faculty registration expenses. 

Application Process:  The application and all required documents must be submitted via the Kuali portal system using this link: Conference Travel Grants for Students.

To guide you through the application process, please review the RSAC tutorial video, How to Apply for the RSAC Conference Travel Grant.

All the following documents must be submitted (in PDF format).  Incomplete applications will not be funded. Conference announcement

• Student's Conference abstract and proof of acceptance of the student's abstract
• Unofficial transcript
• Budget of travel-related expenses.

Please note that only the cost of registration, estimated travel to and from the conference site, and the estimated expense for a hotel room during the conference should be listed in the budget. For regional and virtual conferences only the cost of registration (not supplies) for the conference can be submitted. 

• Proof of conference registration costs.

Students must indicate a faculty mentor on the form; the faculty mentor is expected to formally approve the application through the electronic portal.

We recognize that conferences send acceptance at different times, therefore there is no hard deadline for submission of proposals.  However, after committee review and approval, commitments to fund will be granted on a first come, first serve basis. Therefore, students should apply as soon as possible after they receive organization/society/conference acceptance. Funds are ordinarily distributed on a reimbursement basis following processes used by the university Travel Office. All expenses, following travel, must be fully reconciled within 30 days after your trip (by no later than June 30, 2026 for travel that takes place before the end of June).

Further Information

For questions, please contact Professor C. Michele Thompson thompsonc2@southernct.edu .

Please note that awardees are responsible for completing the University/State required Travel Authorization and associated paperwork within the required timeframe to be reimbursed.

Identifying a Predatory Conference

Predatory journals and conferences are a growing concern in academia. As shared in an article published by Idaho State University, predatory conferences “claim to be scholarly, but are organized by an entity focused on financial gain rather than quality scholarship.” They make money from attendees through the high registration fees, usually with little given in return. Questions for a student to ask when evaluating whether a conference is predatory would be:

1. Does the program description appear legitimate?
2. Is the topic of the conference overly broad or general?
3. Is the conference’s planning group affiliated with a reputable, legitimate organization or educational entity? Are you able to find information about this conference by searching directly through that organization’s main website?
4. If sponsors are named, are they relevant to the topic of the conference?
5. Does the invitation include keynote speakers who are known experts?
6. Are invited attendees charged unreasonably high fees? Does anything seem strange or irregular about how payment of these fees are to be received, and is it clear how much the registration will cost, or are details about the fees complicated and unclear?
7. Is the vetting process for presentations and posters described? Is it reasonable and rigorous, or is the peer review skimped or skipped entirely?
8. Will conference abstracts or proceedings be published? Are you able to locate abstracts or proceedings from previous years?
9. Are continuing education credits offered? If so, are they certified by an entity recognized in your field? Has that entity actually agreed to provide the continuing education credits?
10. Does the target audience seem appropriate for the conference’s aim and scope?
11. BONUS: Is the language of the email invitation, the communications received from the conference organizers, or the website itself disorganized, poorly written and rife with bizarre grammatical and spelling mistakes that truly professional conference organizers, who spend quite a lot of time and money putting these events together, would probably not make?

The fact that a conference is predatory does not always imply that it is not a real event; they frequently do actually take place, but they are poorly-organized, poorly-attended, and offer few learning or networking opportunities.

Vetting conferences for these features is a valuable skill that students should acquire in order to save their equally-valuable time and effort as future academics and professionals. Be aware!

Awards and Review Process

The Research and Scholarship Advisory Committee (RSAC) will review proposals and recommend awardees to the Provost.

Academic Honesty

Proposals must be written by the student applicant. Any proposal clearly authored by the sponsoring faculty member, or containing plagiarism or academic dishonesty, will be disqualified.

Questions

• For content and review questions: contact C. Michele Thompson, RSAC Chair, at thompsonc2@southernct.edu
• For technical/application questions: contact the SPAR office at spar@southernct.edu