Emergency graduate student fund now open

Stipends and student loans might not go far when a student faces an emergency.

With this in mind, former Graduate and Professional Student Federation President Michael Bertucci and former GPSF Secretary Jim Grinias came up with the idea in 2012 to create a safety net.

Current GPSF President Kiran Bhardwaj has made their vision a reality — this October, the fund opened online.

“It’s difficult sometimes, financially, for graduate students to get by,” Bertucci said.

The initial fund had $25,215 and the guidelines for applying were modeled after the Dean of Students’ emergency fund.

“It’s often really a close call sometimes to get by month to month on those stipends. We thought it would be really great if we could start an emergency fund for one-time unexpected emergencies,” Bhardwaj said.

Such emergencies include essential household expenses, travel or unexpected funeral expenses due to a death or illness in the immediate family.

“We’ve been seeing applications and the stories that students are telling are really compelling,” Bhardwaj said.

“It’s just luck sometimes that makes it really hard to be able to get by financially … so the hope is to try to make it possible for students to flourish despite that bad luck.”

Doctoral student Kyle Reeves filled the new position in the GPSF this year that advocates for graduate concerns across campus.

“Our website suggests that nearly 20 students have viewed the application at some point during the previous month, and we anticipate that number to grow quickly as students learn more about this new resource,” he said in an email.

Both undergraduates and graduate students can apply for the SEF, whereas the graduate fund is limited to graduate and professional students only.

“This is a job for many of us, this is part of our professional life, so this is a situation which requires a lot of flexibility,” Bhardwaj said.

In the event that the SEF can only partially cover costs, GPSF can potentially cover the rest.

Since the application went live, the fund has received three applications. Students can apply through the website and there is no cap for grants.

“It would be very unlikely to give much more than $800 but it is situational,” Bhardwaj said.

Bertucci said leaders hope to make the funds sustainable.

“If we spend the money we spend the money but it would be really nice to build the fund so that we can help more people for a longer time,” he said.

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