The Porterfield-Dickens Fund was created to memorialize two alumni who made extraordinary contributions to the field of Higher Education and Student Affairs before their early and untimely deaths. It includes a cash award of up to $1,000 ($500 for master’s research) and a plaque symbolizing the honor and spirit of the award.
The fund is designed to support graduate student research in areas that reflect the values and areas of inquiry modeled by William Porterfield and Cynthia Dickens. In this spirit, the award is presented annually to M.A. and Ph.D. students in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program to support the research endeavors or presentations of research studies at national conferences that meet the following criteria:
- Research that expands theoretical possibilities
- Research that critically examines current professional practice and/or reinvents practice
- Research that is collaborative in nature
- Research that is related to understanding and minimizing the marginalization of individuals based on race, gender, sexual orientation, class, or ethnicity
- Research that holds the potential for improving the lives of students
When you support the Porterfield-Dickens Fund, you help students conduct research and develop professionally.