The Herança Campaign Connecting our Portuguese past, building our Portuguese future
Building a strong
community In a region where 40% of residents have Portuguese ancestry, it is no surprise that UMass Dartmouth has a similar percentage of students with Portuguese heritage. Over the past 10 years alone, nearly 10,000 students with Portuguese ancestry attended UMass Dartmouth. The University also maintains strong connections to Portuguese culture and scholarship through the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture. The Ferreira-Mendez Portuguese American Archives, the Tagus Press and a robust Portuguese Language department that serves both undergraduates and graduates. Portuguese itself is considered one of the most strategically important languages by the U.S. State Department, and there is subsequent growing demand for Portuguese instructors at the high school and college level.
Funding Opportunities Study abroad Summer abroad program Academic semester abroad Graduate Scholarships Portuguese 4+1 Undergraduate Scholarships Portuguese majors Total:
The Heranca Endowment Campaign will help establish the resources to expose more students to Portuguese through study abroad scholarships, provide graduate school scholarships to encourage more Portuguese language students to complete their graduate teaching degrees to help fill the growing demand for Portuguese language teachers, and create a fully funded PhD fellowship to help more area students further Portuguese scholarship. Unfortunately, despite many robust study abroad program partnerships in Portugal, most of our students simply can not afford to go. Among our students with Portuguese ancestry, almost 40% are first generation students, and over a third are Pell Grant eligible, meaning their families have no money to contribute towards their education. As a result, study abroad programs are a seldom pursued luxury rather than an essential educational experience. We hope to change that by establishing an endowed summer study-abroad scholarship fund of $125,000 that would provide 2 $2,500 awards annually for summer study abroad, and a $125,000 endowed school semester fund that would provide 1 $5,000 award. The graduate scholarship endowment would be established with $250,000 in endowment funds, generating 2 $5,000 awards to help defray the costs of participating in the 4+1 Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program by Portuguese language students intending to teach Portuguese. To support additional Portuguese undergraduate majors, the campaign will raise $250,000 to support 2 undergraduate Portuguese majors with a scholarship of $5,000 each. Funds can be named at the $67,500 level for summer study abroad, $125,000 academic semester abroad, $125,000 for MAT scholarships, and $125,000 for the Portuguese major undergraduate scholarships.
Amount
Annual $ generated
Number annually
$125,000
$5,000
2 @ $2,500
$125,000
$5,000
1 @ $5,000
$250,000
$10,000
2 @ $5,000
$250,000
$10,000
2 @ $5,000
$750,000
202312334-CPSC-Heranca-BKLT-LD
umassd.edu/portuguese-studies-center
U University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 285 Old Westport Road • Dartmouth, MA 02747-1252 508.999.8255 • portuguesestudiesctr@umassd.edu