<< TO BE ADAPTED FOR USE IN REQUESTING FUNDS FROM ADMINISTRATORS>>

DATE

ADDRESSEE

Dear Dean / Provost / Vice President Xxxxxxx,

The 15th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing will be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, in March of 2002. This conference has become the major international forum for presentation of research on sentence processing. It encourages interdisciplinary discussion among psycholinguists, computer scientists, theoretical linguists and neuroscientists, all of whom have facts, methods, and insights to contribute to solve research problems that cut across these fields. The conference has been immensely successful, and has had a profound effect on the field, not only by disseminating important findings but also by stimulating new collaborative research endeavors that result from the energetic discussions that are the hallmark of its meetings.

The organizers of the conference have asked us to help establish adequate funding for this year’s meeting. This is how the conference has managed to make ends meet since its inception. It works on a shoestring budget. The CUNY administration will donate space and services, the organizers are donating their time, and all other expenses must be covered by registration fees and donations. It has always been a major goal to keep conference registration within the reach of students and junior faculty. They are the psycholinguists of the future and it is very important that they be there. But since their registration payments don’t by any means cover the cost per participant, this means that every year there is a shortfall to be made up by donations.

In the past, universities and private companies have made financial contributions ranging from $300 to $5,000 each. In return, the sponsoring institutions receive very public thanks on the conference website, in the printed conference program, and at the podium during the meeting. The list of sponsors is essentially a roll-call of the major institutions for psycholinguistic research.

<<I / we>> are hopeful that you will be able to find a pocket of funds somewhere in your budget that could be used for this purpose. <<I / we>> would be glad to come and meet with you to think about how it might be managed, and to provide any further facts that would be helpful. Faculty and students from <<this institution>> have attended CUNY Conference meetings regularly in the past, and we plan to do so again this year. It would be very satisfactory to be part of the team that makes this conference possible. <<I / we>> will be extremely grateful for any support you can give.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXXXXX