Gaiennie Funding

The Gaiennie Fund was set up by the generosity of Dr. L. Rene "Bud" Gaiennie, to provide financial support to COBA doctoral students for advancing their professional and research careers, beyond that provided by their COBA assistantship stipend. The Gaiennie fund can be used for the following purposes:

• Conference travel:
  
  Three types of conference travel expenses are eligible for Gaiennie funding:
  
  
  1. Paper presentation at a national conference: You can receive up to $1,500 per year in reimbursements to defray the travel costs of participating in a national conference for the sole purpose of presenting a paper. The reimbursement may cover conference fees, hotel, airfare, meal expenses, and incidental expenses such as parking. Attending the conference without presenting the paper is not eligible for funding. Also, the conference must be a national conference such as ICIS, AMCIS, or DSI. Regional conferences or special interest group (SIG) meetings are not eligible. Note that the $1,500 limit is per year (not per conference). If you want, you can split this amount among multiple conference over a one-year period, but you have to present papers at each conference to be eligible for reimbursement. The reimbusement that you receive is tax-exempt.
     
     
  2. ICIS doctoral consortium participation: You are also eligible to receive a maximum reimbursement of $1,500 if you are selected to participate in the ICIS doctoral consortium, the premier doctoral consortium in information systems. Other doctoral consortiums such as AMCIS or DSI are not eligible. Only one consortium funding will be available per year for the entire ISDS department. This reimbursement is also tax-exempt.
     
     
  3. Recruiting conference: You can get a reimbursement of upto $1,000 once in your final year of the doctoral program for the purpose of job interviewing at a conference of your choice. You don't have to present a paper at this conference. Note that this $1,000 reimbursement is taxable income, and you are responsible for paying taxes on this income. If you are presenting a paper and recruiting at a conference, you can pick only one funding category for reimbursement (and not both).
     
     
  To apply for Gaiennie funding in any of the above categories, send a letter to your Ph.D. coordinator clearly stating which category you are applying, dates of the conference, a budget detailing the expenses that you expect to incur, and evidence of paper presentation or consortium participation (if applicable). Your Ph.D. coordinator will certify whether your request meets the funding requirements, and forward it to the COBA Ph.D. committee for approval. If approved, you will receive an approval notification from Barbara Bushnell, which you should save and submit along with the original receipts of expenses for reimbursement after you return back from the conference.

• Dissertation Research:
  
  The Gaiennie fund can also be used to cover the cost of dissertation research upto $5,000 per dissertation. Examples of costs that are covered include empirical data collection costs for experimental or field research, costs of special software or database needed for dissertation, and so forth. Some costs, such as the cost of hiring student help to assist with dissertation research or writing, may not be covered if we expect those efforts to be a reasonable part of one's dissertation effort. If unsure about whether specific costs are covered, consult your Ph.D. coordinator. As with conference travel, you need to send your funding request, with itemized details, to your Ph.D. coordinator before these costs are incurred, who will forward it to the COBA Ph.D. committee for approval.
  
  

Other Sources for Travel Funding

• Student Government:
  
  Limited funding is available from the USF Student Government (upto $450 or so) to cover the costs of Ph.D. student's conference travel. You can use this funding source to supplement those costs that are not covered by the Gaiennie fund, but you cannot get dual reimbursement from both sources for the same costs. Note that the Student Government requires that you save the original conference attendance badge for reimbursement. Contact the Student Government office for further details.
  
  
• Departmental funding:
  
  The department may or may not (depending on availability of funds) be able to provide full or partial funding for conference travel. Your department chair is in charge of making these funding decisions. If approved of this grant, you will need to complete a "Travel Authorization Form" (TAR) with the ISDS office manager, before you start your conference travel plans. Contact your department chair for further details