Just Ask

Minerva Cheevy works at a research center that offers grad students and postdocs awards to help cover their expenses whenever they have to travel to present at conferences. The typical award amount they give out is $500, but they often give out more if students need and ask for it. The more awards she gave out, the more Cheevy noticed that male graduate students had a tendency to ask for more money while women “made very modest requests that did not cover their full travel expenses.” So she emailed one graduate student who requested $500 and was incurring nearly $2,000 in travel expenses and basically told her, “Hey, you know you can ask for more money, right?”

It’s a good reminder to us all: “Hey, you know you can ask for more money, right?”

Photo: Jeffrey Zeldman

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