The Sue L. Nguyen (M.A. ’73) Research Travel Prize

Purpose of the Prize

The prize offers MA students the ability to engage in original research of the highest quality by affording her or him access to primary and secondary sources in libraries, archives, and other venues abroad during the summer. (N.B. Domestic research proposals will qualify for funding by these prizes only on an exceptional basis.) The results of such research will normally involve the writing of the "Independent Research Paper" (IRP), a degree requirement for all MA students in the department. It is reasonable to hope that finished essays will be of publishable or near-publishable quality, as past experience with the IRPs has proven.

Assignment of the Prize

Students apply for the prize through the submission of formal and specific research project proposals requiring travel to a foreign library, archive, or other repository of sources pertinent to their research during the summer of that same year. (Please note: only first-year MA students are eligible to apply since the prize is primarily meant to fund IRP-related research.)

Deadline for application is April 1st.

There is no application form: applicants should submit a formal proposal to the Graduate Program Director describing the research project in detail and its relation to one's studies and future work, including a bibliography and specific information regarding the location of documents to be consulted or other materials to be gathered for the purposes of the IRP.

Faculty in the department will select the winner by common consensus. The prize will be awarded on the basis of a number of factors including:

• the clarity and intrinsic interest of the proposal;
• the pertinence of the proposal to the IRP or future research plans;
• the specificity of the research proposed;
• the quality of the bibliography;
• the practical feasibility of completing the project in the designated venue(s); and
• the academic performance of the applicant in the MA program.

At the end of the summer, the student will be required to give a formal written account of the nature and results of her or his research as actually carried out.