Rockefeller Funds Summer Research

David Rockefeller International Experience Grants will now be available to fund student travel overseas for the summer of 2009, the University announced yesterday.

The grants were established by a gift from David Rockefeller ’36, who will donate money annually to enable undergraduates to take part in a “significant international experience,” according to the University’s Vice Provost for International Affairs Jorge I. Dominguez.

In April, Rockefeller donated a separate $100 million to the University that will be used to bolster study abroad programs and arts education.

The amount awarded to each student will be based on the program or project proposal and demonstrated financial need, according to an e-mail sent to the student body from College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds. To be eligible for consideration, the proposed program or plan must include a stay of at least eight weeks in one country or region.

Biology professor Robert A. Lue—who is also chairman of the Committee on Education Abroad—said that after more than a year of deliberation, the committee has decided on three specific factors that define a “significant international experience:” cultural immersion, faculty involvement, and curricular integration.

The CEA provides oversight for the University’s development of travel abroad programs and will evaluate all student applications for the Rockefeller grants, according to Lue. He added that the Office of International Programs will provide the “logistical infrastructure” necessary to administer the grants.

Lue said that faculty involvement could come in the form of “leading a study abroad program, or also guiding students in their selection of the right program.” The CEA also wants to ensure that “the intellectual program that the student has in mind is related to his time at Harvard,” he said.

While these grants appear to be similar to the College’s prestigious year-long Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship—which aims to help graduating seniors “discover and clarify the purpose of [one’s] life” through cultural immersion and field studies—the David Rockefeller grants are designed to sponsor a wider swath of programs, including internships and coursework studies at other universities. The Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship prohibits such academic endeavors and activities spent in the practice or furtherance of a professional career,” according to the fellowship’s Web site.

“We run the gamut from direct coursework for credit to experiences that are based on internships, but what is really important are addressing those three principles,” Lue said.

He added that the total number of grants to be awarded had not yet been established, and that the CEA was “more focused on announcing the competition itself, making sure that we are clear on what endeavors abroad might be supported.”

“We’re still in the process of working out the budgetary aspects of it,” Lue said. “There is a budget, but I don’t think we are prepared to speak to what the total budget will be.”

Applications for the Rockefeller Grant, along with those for all other Office of International Program Summer Grants, are due in late February.

Rockefeller’s April gift also established the President’s Innovation Fund for International Experience, which gives the University President discretionary power to award funding to faculty members looking to develop programs abroad for students.

“[The Innovation Fund would help] faculty who are doing interesting work in various parts of the world, [and] want to add a student internship component,” Hammonds said in an interview with The Crimson last month. “We’re really trying to get that program off the ground, and we’re beginning to ask faculty for proposals for that.”

—Staff Writer Peter F. Zhu can be reached at pzhu@fas.harvard.edu.