SESAH CONFERENCE TRAVEL GRANTS

SESAH offers grants for travel to its annual conference to two groups with the Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant and Emerging Professionals Conference Travel Grant. These grants support the recipient’s presentation of a scholarly paper at the conference as well as full attendance in conference activities: paper sessions, business meeting, keynote address, and study tour. The award is $400 for travel, which may be used for transportation, food, lodging, and/or other expenses related to attending the conference. In addition to the monetary award, the grant provides gratis conference registration and study tour.

Eligibility Criteria for Graduate Students

The Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant seeks to encourage the wider participation of graduate students in architectural history and related disciplines in SESAH and to support the presentation of their work in a paper session at the annual conference. Up to three (3) conference travel grants are awarded each year to graduate students.  An applicant must:

• be a member of SESAH at the time of application. To join SESAH or to renew a membership, visit this link.
• be a graduate student enrolled in an accredited school of architecture, art history program, department of historic preservation, or related academic program. 

Since 2018, graduate student travel grants have been supported by the Gavin Townsend Memorial Fund, established in honor of longtime SESAH member Gavin Townsend (1956-2018).

Eligibility Criteria for Emerging Professionals

SESAH maintains the Conference Travel Grant Fund for Emerging Professionals to support the conference travel of early career preservationists. The Emerging Professionals Conference Travel Grant encourages non-academic professionals working in the preservation field to join SESAH’s scholarly community and present their work in a paper session at the annual conference. One (1) conference travel grant is awarded each year to an emerging professional.  An applicant must:

• be a member of SESAH at the time of application. To join SESAH or to renew a membership, visit this link.
• be employed by a federal/state/local historic preservation office within the SESAH twelve-state region (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia)
• have worked in the preservation field for less than five (5) years.

SESAH also maintains the Conference Travel Grant Fund for Emerging Professionals to support the conference travel of early career preservationists.

Call for Applications

SESAH invites applications for the 2022 Conference Travel Grants from both graduate students and emerging professionals.  

These applications should be made at the same time as proposing a paper abstract for SESAH’s Annual Conference.  

There are two stages and deadlines for applications. An applicant will be evaluated based upon materials submitted during both stages.

Stage 1 Deadline: May 6, 2022 (same as deadline for proposing a paper abstract for SESAH’s Annual Conference)
Stage 2 Deadline: August 13, 2022
Recipients will be notified if they are awarded the grant on September 1, 2022

Stage 1 of application:  

1. materials required for proposing a paper abstract:  

– abstracts (in MS Word format) of no more than 300 words, including the applicant’s name, professional affiliation, contact information, title of the proposed paper, and 5 keywords
– CV (in Word or PDF format).

2. application for the SESAH Conference Travel Grant in PDF, stating the following:

– whether the application is for “Graduate Students” or “Emerging Professionals”
– name
– phone number, email address, and home or business address
– school/college/university or place of employment
– for graduate students only: name of adviser, their email, and phone number
– what year membership in SESAH began
– an estimated budget, listing transportation, food, lodging, and all other travel expenses for the entire trip. (The budget does not need to include the cost of the conference registration, as it is covered as part of the grant award.)

If an applicant’s paper abstract/proposal is accepted for the conference (by June 17), they will proceed to Stage 2.  

Stage 2 of application: 

1. A PDF of the completed paper, both text and images, attached to an email.

All material should be submitted by email to the Annual Conference Papers Committee:
papers@sesah.org