RELIEF Funding Awards

Top $22,000

As a result of funding from an innovative program that helps offset costs with unpaid internships, 35 Tarleton State University students in the College of Liberal and Fine Arts (COLFA) received financial assistance to enable them to complete an unpaid internship.

In its first full year, 69 students applied for RELIEF, Real-world Experiential Learning Internship Education Fund, assistance. In total, 35 students from seven COLFA departments qualified to receive financial assistance, totaling $22,420 COLFA has over 1800 undergraduate and graduate students across six academic programs in Stephenville and Fort Worth. Internships provide hands-on education through real-world learning and thus are a vital part of the COLFA curriculum

Dr. Cessna Winslow oversees the Communication Studies department’s internship program Seeing a need to help students pursue unpaid internships, in 2021 she created RELIEF with funds from private donors. RELIEF grew substantially with an award from President James Hurley’s Presidential Fund for Excellence

The College of Liberal and Fine Arts is the incubator for the program The goal is that eventually RELIEF funding will be available to students across the university.

RELIEF recipient Reagan Marriott (Spring ‘23) interned at a nonprofit agency that provides life skills and job training classes to those in need Reagan’s internship required her to travel to events and take pictures for the agency ’ s website and social media pages. Reagan commented, “Thankfully, I was equipped with a camera but RELIEF funds allowed me to purchase some needed accessories ” She added, “Taking an unpaid internship was risky because it took me away from paid work. This scholarship took away that fear and stress which allowed me to dedicate more time to the learning experience that was this internship."