For Students
J-Term Grants
The Committee on African Studies offers grants to full-time Harvard students for travel to Africa during the January term between fall and spring semesters. These grants are available for research opportunities only*, and can be used to cover the unfunded cost of a faculty approved J-term trip or project. Students must spend a minimum of three weeks in Africa and are expected to immerse themselves in local African culture and society through their research, sponsored project, and living arrangements. Grant awards are limited, and intended to cover round-trip travel and modest accommodations.
*Research opportunities will only be considered if they meet the following criteria:
- Your research is supported by a Harvard faculty member. (For example, a Harvard junior/senior working on a Senior Thesis Project would have their faculty adviser sign off on the research proposal in the recommendation letter.)
- Your research is related to an academic requirement for a registered Harvard course.
Completed applications for 2013 CAS J-Term travel grants are due by 3:00 pm on Wednesday, October 17, 2012. Please bring 3 copies of your completed application to the Committee on African Studies, CGIS-South Room S-403, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:
- CARAT application form https://asperin.fas.harvard.edu/carat (Submit online and print out a copy)
- CAS J-Term Travel Grant Application form
- Budget (Please complete budget section included in CAS application form, attach additional information if needed)
- Unofficial Transcript
- Current Resume
- 500 word proposal
- Please tell us about the research/project you are planning to work on in January, and whether or not this is continued research from prior time spent in Africa.
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Itinerary (Expected flight dates, plans for use of your time while in Africa)
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Two letters of recommendation (one must be from the Harvard faculty member that has approved the project you are working on, as stated above) emailed or mailed directly to Elise Noël, at enoel@fas.harvard.edu.
DOWNLOAD: J-Term Grant Application
Examples of Past J-Term Projects
- Masters Graduate Student – Ghana: Policy Area Exervice, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA): Program Design for Iron Supplement Distribution in Northern Ghana
- Masters Graduate Student – Egypt: Catalyzing a Revolution Dividend for Egypt through a Just and Effective Investment Environment
- Masters Graduate Student – Sierra Leone: Causes of Underperformance and Sources of Social Resilience among Nurses in Sierra Leone
- Masters Graduate Student – South Africa: Sustainable Eco-Tourism Infastructure Design: Fostering Social, Economic, and Environmental Compatability between Multiple User Groups in the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area
- Doctoral Graduate Student – South Africa: Secondary Analysis of Incident HIV cohort in Mtubatuba
- Doctoral Graduate Student – South Africa: Mobile Ethnography of Care-Seeking Amidst Migration: Following Holiday Migration to Rural Homes and Observing Labor Recruitment in the Rural Eastern Cape
- Doctoral Graduate Student – Ghana: Improving Policy Implementation in Ghana
- Doctoral Graduate Student – Mali: From the River to the Train: Malian-French Networks and Trajectories
- Doctoral Graduate Student – Tanzania: The Mining Industry Regulatory and Tax Laws Reforms in Africa: A Case on Why Africa Must Benefit from its Mineral Wealth
- Doctoral Graduate Student – Senegal: Texts in Context: The Epistemology of West African Tijani Sufism
- Undergraduate Senior Thesis – Mali/Guinea: Currency as Ideology: The Political Economy of Monetary Policy in Francophone West Africa, 1958-1968
- Undergraduate Senior Thesis – Ghana: Solution for Extracting Metal at E-Waste Sites
- Undergraduate – Kenya: Inspiring Literacy through Reading and Writing in Kenyan Schools
- Undergraduate - Ethiopia: Designing Web Resources for Tigre Oral Tradition
