Charge: To maintain the Travel Award program that has been established to encourage participation and attendance by VRA members at the Association’s annual conference; to administer the awards by formulating criteria for application guidelines and the selection of the award recipients upon approval by the Executive Board; and to arrange for the presentation of the awards.
Travel Awards Committee
Chair: Jeannine Keefer, University of Richmond
Please see the Travel Awards page for current opportunities and rules as well as a list of past recipients.
History of the Committee
The Tansey Travel Award program was started in 1993 with initial funding by its namesake, founder and long-time member Luraine Tansey. She received the Association’s Distinguished Service Award that year and requested that her honorarium be used to assist other VRA members with their professional development. This became the seed of the travel awards fund, further supplemented when she donated her first retirement checks (one from teaching art history, and another much smaller one from slide librarianship). Luraine’s generous gift was matched by the VRA, and the Tansey Travel Award Fund was born. The Travel Awards Committee, formed in 1993, presented the first five awards of $400 each to attendees at the 1994 VRA Conference in New York City.
Awards are now funded through fundraising events, VRA member donations, corporate sponsors, and other VRA funds. Other travel awards have included Corporate Travel Awards, New Horizon awards, Top-Up awards and student awards. Individual VRA members have also sponsored named awards, including the Kathe Hicks Albrecht Award and the Joseph C. Taormina Memorial Award. Corporate sponsors have included Archivision, Davis Art Images, Gallery Systems, and Saskia, Ltd.
The Travel Awards Committee especially encourages applications from new members/first time conference attendees; veteran members who have not been able to attend conferences for several years; international members; solo, isolated, and part-time VR professionals; students considering careers in visual resources; and any member actively participating in the conference who lacks sufficient funding to attend. Beginning in 2012, travel awards have been available to non-members with the provision they become members of VRA prior to attending the conference.