SASgov offers two types of funding awards for SAS and LPS graduate students: “Departmental Funding”, to be used at the discretion of graduate students in departments with active SASgov representation; and “Interdisciplinary Event Funding,” to be used to fund an academic or social event designed for graduate students in more than one department.

Departmental Funding. SASgov’s budget comes out of the “General Fee” each graduate student pays to the university: Departmental Funding in effect returns a portion of that “General Fee” to the graduate students in departments with active SASgov representation. Departmental Funding may be used to throw a social event, invite a guest speaker, spruce up the student lounge - for anything that benefits graduate students in the department as a group. Requests for departmental funding must be approved by the department’s SASgov representative.  Click here to look up your department’s max award, eligibility, and use of funds to date. Requests for 2009-2010 (including Summer 2010) must be submitted before April 1st, 2010.

Interdisciplinary Event Funding. With the aim of encouraging interaction between graduate students from different departments, SASgov has dedicated funding for interdisciplinary events. Whether academic or social, if the event is organized by and will bring together grad students from more than one department within SAS and/or LPS, it is eligible for Interdisciplinary Event Funding.  There will be a final deadline for events in the summer and fall (to October 2010) on April 16 (applications submitted by Apr 2nd will be considered earlier, which will allow awarded funds to be used sooner as well).

Please Note: SASgov cannot, under any circumstances, reimburse money already spent.  Purchases must be made through SASgov, and the SASgov VP Finance must be contacted at least sufficiently far in advance of the purchase date.

There are two cases: (1) You need to make purchases from a single restaurant-type vendor (e.g. buy pizza for a seminar) and no alcohol is involved. In this case, please make your request one week before the deadline.  For online orders, e.g. Fresh Grocer, please allow two weeks.  (2) Your request is more complicated (multiple vendors) or alcohol is involved. Then you must make your request at least three weeks before the event. SAS Finance will not process requests made too late!

Please contact the SASgov Finance chair directly with any questions. sasgov-finance@sas.upenn.edu

For other sources of funding for graduate students (for research, travel, etc.), see our list of helpful links:
Other Funding Resources

For information on how SASgov allocates money, see the Approved 2008-09 Budget