Hi everyone!
We are excited to announce that we are offering the Lambda Tuition Award in STEM Studies at the University of Alberta for the 2019-2020 scholastic year!
The application deadline is August 15, 2019, for a stellar out LGBT student entering an undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) program.
The application form is available for download here
If you know any exemplary students entering such a program in Alberta – please pass the message along!
…
Criteria for Lambda Tuition Award in STEM Studies
The Lambda Tuition Award in STEM Studies for undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta is valued at $2,500 annually for four years. It will be awarded on the basis of two areas of recognition and achievement. The first is your academic record and future ambitions in science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) as a major course of study. The second is your meaningful contribution as an active, openly LGBT-identified person to the interests of your LGBT community, whether it is in your high school, place of worship, neighbourhood, city, province, or territory, or on Indigenous land. You will have to follow the University of Alberta’s procedures and deadlines for registration if you are accepted as a student there, including the prior one-year residency requirement in most faculties. The generous donors of this award wish to remain anonymous but they want t help LGBT people succeed in STEM. We welcome your completed application with required documents by the deadline, August 30, 2019. Here are the 10 criteria:
-
You must provide official proof of your status as a citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
-
You are openly “out” in the LGBT community as a person who is primarily lesbian, gay, or bisexual in orientation, or who is transgender; however, you may prefer to self-identify with other terms, e.g. two-spirit (Indigenous), queer, intersex, pansexual; or in a way that intersects with your racial or religious background, or with being differently abled.
-
You must provide Lambda with a full transcript of your high school marks for the last two years of your enrollment.
-
You must provide official proof of acceptance as a first year, full-time, undergraduate student, majoring in a STEM program at the University of Alberta.
-
Your must write your own, original, one-page, typed cover letter briefly describing your educational goals in STEM studies.
-
You should be an active member of the LGBT community, making a meaningful contribution to it through your energy and commitment. You must write your own, original, typed, 500-word description of your recent involvement in the LGBT community and your motivations for it.
-
You must provide a confidential letter of reference, with contact information, from an LGBT leader who knows you personally and recently, testifying to your contribution to the LGBT community.
-
If you are the successful candidate for this award, Lambda Foundation will send the tuition payments to the registrar of the University of Alberta to be credited to your tuition account. You must agree, as part of your application package, to submit to Lambda Foundation official university documentation of your full-time, good academic standing in a STEM program, by September 1 each year in order to merit each annual installment of $2,500 towards your tuition costs. You may switch to another university after at least two completed terms at the University of Alberta and still receive the remaining installments of this tuition award, as long as you transfer to a full-time major in a STEM program and notify Lambda Foundation right away with proof of acceptance.
-
Lambda Foundation will keep all applicants’ supporting documents confidential. However, you must sign a Lambda Foundation publicity release form as part of your application package. In this you agree to be publicly identified by your true name and recent, verified, personal photograph as an “out” member of the LGBT community, and to provide Lambda Foundation with a statement of your educational goals and a description of the contribution you have made to the LGBT community. Lambda Foundation will publicize this information only if you are the successful candidate for the Lambda Tuition Award in STEM Studies. The successful candidate may use a pseudonym, and/or disguise or withhold a personal photograph only for pressing reasons of safety and security. Lambda Foundation will judge each such case on its merits.
-
The Lambda Foundation’s judging panel is comprised of several of its own volunteer directors, including current or retired university professors and former or current LGBT activists. The Foundation may consult outside experts in STEM studies for this award. Lambda Foundation’s decisions on all aspects of this competition will be final. There will be no appeals. Neither Lambda Foundation nor the donors are financially responsible to any unsuccessful applicant on any grounds. Neither Lambda Foundation nor the donors are financially responsible to an award recipient who does not maintain the necessary academic requirement under university regulations to merit the subsequent annual tuition payments, or who fails to meet the other requirements for the award as listed in this document.