Gaudino Fund

Application Guidelines

Selection Criteria:

Projects are to involve experiential learning that is both critical and self-reflective. Student’s projects must be academically rigorous and focused on intellectual questions worked out carefully with faculty sponsors and must be approved by the Winter Study Committee. Selection will favor experiential components that immerse students in previously unfamiliar social milieus and that have students participate as well as observe. Projects must also entail self-reflective examinations of how students’ experiences impacted their personal beliefs and values. The Board prefers projects that are not part of active course work. For further details, see Selection Criteria.

Application Format:

Written applications must include:

  1. a brief student biography, including both a personal profile (the student’s background) and a Williams profile (the student’s class, major, academic work and extracurricular activities);
  2. a description of the 99 project that outlines:
    • its academic focus;
    • the experiential component;
    • the anticipated “otherness” involved with the project;
    • a personal value/view/belief the student holds and intends to examine.
  3. a bibliography;
  4. a statement of purpose/motivation – why this particular plan and why now;
  5. a proposed budget; and
  6. a letter of recommendation from the faculty member sponsoring the project. To include comments on:
    • the project’s academic merit;
    • the student’s ability to learn;
    • the student’s motivation, and
    • the capacity of the student to be engaged by “otherness” – uncomfortable learning.

Application Deadline:

The completed application must be submitted to your Faculty Sponsor and to the Gaudino Scholar by a deadline that has not been set yet for the 2011 application. More general 99 details from the College are found here.

The Gaudino Fund Trustees may be in touch for additional information and clarifications of your application in advance of their fall meeting. Students will be notified immediately after that weekend meeting of the final decision by the Fund.