[foss4g2014] Scholarships

[Eli Adam]

Hi all,

This is a complex topic that we should add to the agenda of the
Tuesday LOC meeting, http://calagator.org/events/1250465631, phone in
options available as well.

On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 1:02 PM, Kristin Bott <bottk at reed.edu> wrote:
> I think this is a great idea, and given some folks more in-the-know re:
> likely sponsors/backers, I'd be game to work on seeking funding to make this
> happen -- particularly if it's targeted at women/minorities... (either one
> or 50%+ of many -- donors may opt to keep the funds general support or
> designated/restricted)

The LOC should primary determine where all conference funds go, which
makes me somewhat opposed to sponsors directing funds.  That being
said, anyone is free to pay someone else's admission and use whatever
criteria they choose.  Like the scholarships for OSCON, if some
--one/company would like to make no-cost admission available to FOSS4G
(by paying it on the attendee's behalf), I think that we should
certainly partner with them to facilitate that.  Structured in that
manner, sponsors are not directing the use of conference funds (they
are directing their own funds).  This also gets the LOC out of a
controversial topic, sponsors can choose the criteria and recipients,
not the LOC.  Kristin, if you want to work on this, that would be very
helpful.  You don't have to limit yourself to those already sponsoring
but we can get that info to you.

> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 11:09 AM, Darrell Fuhriman <darrell at garnix.org>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I think there are two different things people are thinking when I say
>> "scholarship":
>>
>> 1) Free or discounted admission to students, possibly in exchange for
>> helping with the conference.

Yes, this is largely driven by the conference's need for volunteers, I
don't think that it should necessarily be limited to students but
perhaps students should get priority.

>> 2) A grant for someone, not necessarily a student, to attend who may not
>> have been able to otherwise.

I think there is a need for this as well.  There are two reasons I'm
not in favor of it being run by the LOC.  One is that in all cases,
the LOC is working on a budget projection rather than already existing
allocated funds.  Financial caution always encourages me to error on
the safe side.  The second reason to keep the LOC out of this is that
it is a minefield that brings underlying tensions in the OSGeo
community into stark relief.

I think that the LOC is the wrong place to address these issues.  Some
combination of the OSGeo conference or education committee is the
correct venue to resolve this conflict.

Conference scholarships could be funded by some percent of previous
FOSS4G returns.  That way previous years are funding future years
rather than dealing with projections, that nicely resolves the fiscal
issue.  A major issue to be addressed is financial need of major code
contributors.  Some volunteers donate thousands of hours developing
great open source projects, not all of these contributors can afford
to attend FOSS4G.  It is difficult to say to these volunteers, "we
have established a scholarship fund to bring people to FOSS4G to learn
about the great software you have developed, unfortunately, we have no
program to bring you here to talk about it and meet many of the people
using the software to which you have contributed."  There are only
limited funds for what will be far greater need of various deserving
situations.

The 2013 LOC had some controversy surrounding this topic.  I think
they were able to find a successful resolution with the help of EDINA,
http://edina.ac.uk/, which I think provided funding for what they
called "Academic Bursaries,"
http://2013.foss4g.org/registration/academic-bursaries/

Several people on this thread suggested great ideas for external
scholarship funding and criteria.  I strongly support efforts and
programs like those.  I'm not in favor of the LOC directly running
anything like this with conference funds, not that I don't think that
it is a good idea, just that it will be a source of much controversy,
sink of time, and probably be of minimal benefit for all the effort.
I would support and help anyone interested get involved with the OSGeo
conference and education committees to try and develop something like
this for OSGeo and all FOSS4G events.

It sounds like I may be the odd one out on this topic, in which case,
perhaps just continue on after reading.

My thoughts, Eli

>>
>> We've already made plans for (1) -- essentially a heavily discounted
>> admission in exchange for a day of work, up to some maximum (I think we
>> decided around 60, I need to look at my notes). This is included in our
>> current budget (mostly in the "percent complimentary admissions" budget
>> item.) My argument for making it small, but greater than zero is that you
>> want your volunteers to have a little bit of skin in the game so they're
>> less likely flake out on you -- but maybe I'm not being fair to them.
>>
>> I was actually wanting to talk about (2). Jacob's link to OSCON
>> (http://www.oscon.com/oscon2013/public/content/scholarships), or the SoTM.us
>> version (waived fees + $500 travel grant) is much more in-line with what I
>> was thinking.
>>
>> And to David's point -- I'm bringing this up now explicitly so we can
>> budget for it. :)
>>
>> Without whipping out the spreadsheet, I think the costs to the bottom line
>> are something like this:
>>
>> -- Cost of catering: ~$300
>> -- 1 Workshop ~$500 (if we want to offer this)
>> -- 5 nights hotel: ~$750
>> -- 1 flight: ~$800 (depending)
>>
>> Total: $2350
>>
>> I don't count the waived conference admission, since the marginal cost of
>> another attendee is primarily the catering. I do count the workshop, because
>> space is limited and that's revenue forgone.
>>
>> If we do decide to offer a scholarship, I'd like to be targeted at women
>> and minorities. If we do offer more than one, I'd like to set aside at least
>> 50% of them for women and minorities.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Darrell
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Kristin Bott
> Instructional Technologist / Quantitative Applications
> Instructional Technology Services (ITS)
> Reed College
>
> ETC 225
> 503/788-6642
> bottk at reed.edu
>
>
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