By Teri Finneman, Chair, University of Kansas, teri.finneman@ku.edu

With the approval of the History leadership team, Will, Cayce, and I decided that all graduate students with accepted History papers in the student competition will have their AEJMC registration fees paid this year.

We are all fully aware of the financial difficulties in these hard times and do not want students unable to present because they do not have university support and/or cannot afford it.

We accepted nine student papers this year after having an amazing number of 19 total student-only submissions. AEJMC covers the registration of the top three. This leaves six remaining students, for a total of $780 in registration fees.

Right now, our Emery student travel fund has about $200 in interest, which will likely grow to about $300 for the year. This then leaves about $500 for the division to cover.

Thanks to the amazing generosity of Hazel Dicken-Garcia and her $28,000 gift to us, the division balance at this time is $40,000. We believe Hazel would find this $500 to help students in this unusual time to be a good use of her money.

Furthermore, we are still receiving $1,000 from Taylor and Francis that was to go toward the Awards Gala that will now have only $100 in door prize expenses since we do not have to pay for a bar, AV or snacks this year, leaving us with a free and clear $900.

So overall, helping these graduate students does not set us back financially at all, and we believe is the right thing to do.

In addition, we will be planning a summer Zoom social for our current graduate students as well as the many news faces who submitted to the division this year. More details on that to come later.