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

DATE

ADDRESSEE

Dear Dean / Provost / Vice President Xxxxxxx,

The 19th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing will be held at the 
Graduate Center of the City University of New York, in March of 2006. 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 researchers. 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