A. Purpose
• The Strasheim Scholarship honors the memory of Lorraine A. Strasheim, a foreign language educator, a moving force through the history of the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association, Inc. and a mentor to many members of IFLTA.
• The scholarship aims to improve foreign language teaching in Indiana by helping teachers to undertake projects which involve a significant upgrading of language, other than English, and/or cultural skills.
• The award will reimburse teachers up to $1500 for out-of-pocket expenses above and beyond any other scholarships or subsidies. Up to two scholarships may be awarded annually.
• Since it is our intention to enable as many people as possible to travel, preference will be given to applicants not receiving comparable grants from other sources.

B. Eligibility
• Applicants must have been a member of IFLTA for at least the previous three years, and must expect to teach the language involved during the subsequent academic year.
• Applicants must have made arrangements for participation in a recognized workshop or seminar, preferably in a foreign country but possibly in this country, and/or in an individually planned program of skills acquisition. Preference will be given to applicants without significant recent foreign experience and to projects involving at least twenty-five days in the country where the target language or culture is found.
• Members of the IFLTA executive board are not eligible.

C. Application Procedures
• Applicants will submit by March 2, 2009 an application providing biographical and professional data and information about the project planned. Professional data should detail the applicant’s involvement in IFLTA. Project information should contain a narrative description of the project and its expected benefits, a detailed budget, existence, if any, of financial need and funding from other sources.
• The application will include two letters of support, one from a supervisory administrator and one from a colleague, who must also be a current member of IFLTA.
• An evaluation panel, appointed by the IFLTA executive board, will review the applications and make recommendations to the executive board, which will then select (a) winner(s) and an alternate. All decisions by the panel and the executive board will be final. The board will also have the option of choosing no winner, if none of the applications in any one year seems deserving of support. Applicants will be notified in May of the status of their applications.
• Criteria used in making the decision will include:
     1) time elapsed since last significant overseas study;
     2) appropriateness of the project;
     3) expected contributions to the applicant's professional growth;
     4) merit shown by the application materials and letters of support.
• Although there will be no rigorous rotation schedule, an attempt will be made over the years to make awards within the various constituencies of IFLTA.

D. Administration
• Upon receiving written confirmation that the successful applicant will indeed be undertaking the proposed project, IFLTA will issue a check for $1000. If the participant for some reason does not complete the proposed project, the original $1000 must be returned to IFLTA.
• After the participant confirms in writing that the expenses exceeded $1000, a check for the remaining expenses up to $500 will be issued. In case the expenses were less than $1000, the participant will be encouraged to send the difference to the scholarship fund of the appropriate state language organization.

E. Responsibilities of the Scholarship Recipient
After the conclusion of the project, the winner will submit a description of the experience, two or three typewritten pages, for publication in the IFLTA Newsletter. The recipient will serve on the review panel for the following year and will, if appropriate, present a session about the project at the next IFLTA conference.