Accommodations and Expenses

Each NEH Summer Scholar will receive a stipend of $4,500. (Please note that stipends are taxable.) Because participating Scholars will need to finalize travel arrangements before the seminar begins, every attempt will be made to have the check for your stipend sent to you before your departure from the United States. You can expect to pay $1500 or more for Trans-Atlantic airfare for a flight from the East Coast and more from points further west. (You will want to make the most advantageous arrangement you can from your respective points of departure.) In addition to room and board, NEH Scholars will be responsible for other program-related expenses such as transfers to and from Siena, transportation for some group field trips, overnight accommodations during our field-trip to Rome, return bus fare from Rome to Siena, and museum admissions. While the NEH stipend will go a long way toward subsidizing next summer's program, you may well find that you need to supplement this amount from other resources to cover the program’s expenses.

We intend to house participants in apartments in the city, as much as possible within the city walls or within easy reach of the historic center by public transport. Estimates for the cost of housing should be clearer at a time closer to our departure, but will probably be something like $90 per person, per day. (We are in the process of negotiating with some new landlords, and so cannot be as precise as we would like.) As for any other expenses mentioned in this letter, estimates of this sort are approximate, since expenses will be in Euro and none of us can foresee next year's exchange rate or rate of inflation. (Since our last seminar, the value of the Euro varied from approximately $1.35 to $1.60 per Euro.) Once the selection process is complete, you will need to tell us very quickly what your housing needs are. For example, you will need to let us know if you will be coming alone, with a partner or with family member(s). By then we will have more specific details about prices and options, and we will help you make housing arrangements based on your needs. (Arrangements for guests who are coming to visit you for short periods of time will be your responsibility.)

The cost of food varies widely, from $5.00 to $7.00 for individual servings, such as pizza-by-the-slice or sandwiches, to $30-40 for fixed-price “tourist menus” in moderate-priced restaurants, to high-priced gourmet meals with vintage wines. You will find that you can eat well relatively inexpensively by buying food from supermarkets and delicatessens; if you choose instead to eat frequent meals in restaurants, you will wish to budget accordingly. Unless something dramatic and unforeseen happens to the exchange rate, you can assume that your food options and expenses in Siena will be about what they would be if you were living away from home for an extended period in a medium-sized American city, or perhaps a bit more.

NEH has asked us to inform participants that attendance at all required meetings of the seminar is mandatory and that anyone who needs to drop out of the program will be required to return a pro-rated portion of the stipend.