The Executive Board of the Midwest Writing Centers Association (MWCA) is pleased to announce awards to support the scholarship, service, and conference participation of both student and professional MWCA members. 

MWCA Scholarship and Travel Grant Awards are offered to undergraduate, graduate, and professional writing center consultants and staff who are attending or presenting their research and scholarship at the MWCA conference. This spring, scholarship and travel grants of up to $300 will be awarded to support travel for student and professional members who attend the 2025 MWCA Conference in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, from March 13–15, 2025. The grants will be issued at the conference as reimbursement for travel expenses. All writing consultants and staff who are members of MWCA and are attending or presenting at the conference are encouraged to apply.

Eligibility 

Applicants must be undergraduate students, graduate students, professionals currently working in MWCA member writing centers, or must have an individual MWCA membership. The MWCA board especially welcomes applications from members of underrepresented groups and people who have never presented at or attended a regional conference or the IWCA or NCPTW conferences. 

Because MWCA grants are competitive and awarded based on the degree to which the proposal meets the criteria described below, applicants are not guaranteed funding. The number of grants awarded depends on the funding available to the MWCA.

Application 

Interested applicants must complete the MWCA 2025 Travel Grant Application, including an explanation of how their experiences working in writing centers, including daily consulting/tutoring, research, and/or administrative work, make them a strong candidate for the grant. Effective applications will demonstrate the following: 

• evidence of commitment to writing center work (not merely that the candidate works in a writing center) 

• how they would benefit from MWCA conference participation 

• how their presence/participation would enrich the MWCA conference, (e.g., the impact of their research or its interest to the field, their contribution to the diversity of the conference, etc.) 

• a statement of financial need and/or acknowledgment of funding from other sources

The audience for the letter—members of the MWCA Board—are writing center professionals from a variety of educational settings who must award funding to candidates based solely upon what appears in the letter.

Additional Considerations 

• Applicants who have had conference proposals accepted will be given first priority; those attending but not presenting at the conference will then be considered for funding.  

• The MWCA’s intent is to encourage representatives from a diversity of institutions. The first consideration will be the quality of each application; ultimately, in the event of numerous highly competitive applications, reviewers will favor a diversity of schools to enrich the conference. 

• Applications from consultants/staff who have not won travel grants in previous years will be favored over applications from those who have previously won travel grants. 

• Applicants who demonstrate financial need and/or who do not have funding from other sources will be favored over applicants who have the possibility of being funded by their institution.

Deadlines and Process

Applications should be submitted by Monday, March 03 at 11:59p to be considered.

Regarding student applications, please include both your own contact information and the contact information of the director of your writing center; the writing center director will be notified of student applications via email and cc’ed on correspondence. In addition, if the review committee has questions about an application, they may wish to contact the applicant's writing center director. Directors applying for the professional grant may simply include their own contact information here. 

Notification of awards will be sent in March and announced at the MWCA conference.