Emergency financial support for students – Please donate if you can

Dear colleagues,

We are writing to encourage faculty to consider reallocating unneeded funds from your Accountable Professional Expense Funds (APEF) to support students during COVID-19. Faculty and staff who have either an Accountable Professional Expense Fund (APEF) or a Department and Senior Administrator Expense (DSAE) account can allocate funds for Emergency Student Support grants or Graduate Student Support funds here.

So far, faculty have donated $34,749.60 (16%) of the total donations amounting to $218,932.11.

Every employee is provided $2,200 per year, up to a maximum total accumulation of $13,200, so if you are at or near this maximum, please consider donating.

Emergency Student Support contributions from faculty and staff are providing new emergency grants to students in need to supplement the donor funding that had been depleted. The experience thus far during the COVID-19 crisis suggests that the greatest needs for financial aid includes funding for food and shelter (groceries, rent), as well as medications, household needs, damage deposits, moving costs, emergency travel, computer equipment and computer repair. 

Graduate Student Support contributions from faculty and staff are supporting a program to provide additional graduate student employment. This program funds colleges and units to hire graduate students to assist with incremental and unanticipated work created by the COVID-19 crisis such as organization and processing of remote exams, marking, working to support development of remote learning content and assessment tools, and assisting with anticipated assessment/support needs for incoming high school students.

Any contribution you can make at this point will help support our students, who are especially vulnerable to serious financial crises as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.