We usually offer 1-week, 2-week, or 7-week Ofstad courses. Salary and compensation have been:
1-credit class + lecture/reading (1 or 2 weeks): $3000 salary, $63 per diem for food
3-4 credit class + lecture/reading (7 weeks): $10,000, $63 per diem for food
Estimated cost of travel (will vary, and can cover airfare, rental car for 1 or 2 weeks, or mileage for gas at .55/mile plus hotel stay, if needed)
One-Week Visit: Students will get one credit and will be expected to have 720 contact minutes (12 contact hours)– however, we can schedule the class for 10 hours and require a pre-class meeting and attendance at the lecture to account for 2 of those hours if that’s your preference. The class is generally listed as a 400- or 500-level class, so most students will be upper-level English majors
Two-Week Visit: Basically, the same as a one-week visit but with more flexibility in terms of scheduling (which can translate into MWF instead of MTWRF *or* shorter classes across 10 days instead of 5). There aren’t really a TON of reasons to do 2 weeks instead of 1, but it does give the students a little more space to hang out with the topic and gives a little more time for projects, etc. If scholars can manage it and prefer it for their own planning purposes, though, it’s really a nice option!
Seven-Week Visits: Students will get three or four credits and will be expected to have the same number of contact minutes that they would have during a regular-semester course of the same weight
Course topic
The course should be a subject of interest to you, but we’re always excited when courses offer a) materials that students are unlikely to encounter in other classes and b) content that might appeal to interdisciplinary minors (WGST, Asian Studies, Child Studies, Disability Studies, etc.)
You will assign readings and assignments (for a one-week course, it’s unlikely that a traditional research paper will be your only or best option for assessments, though it’s worth noting that they’re expected to do 2 hours of work outside of class for every 1 hours spent in class)
Public Lecture
The public lecture (or reading) should be, likewise, on a topic of your choice, though most scholars choose to speak either on the same basic subject as the class OR on a project-in-progress. It’s also possible that your lecture could be on a subject related to academia– alt-ac jobs, archival work, pedagogy, etc.
The lecture is generally 45 minutes with 15 minutes for Q&A. The spaces we use for this are equipped with projection equipment and microphones.
Accommodations and Compensation
You’ll stay on campus in a dorm space that has two bedrooms (one with a queen bed, the other with twin bunk beds), a living area, a full kitchen, and a full bathroom with laundry. You can also use the university recreation center and library.
The contract will be written to not only reflect the stipend (see above) but also the estimated cost of travel and daily meals, meaning that you will not be reimbursed for those costs but paid up front. So we’d need to work out some of the basic details of travel fairly early on in order to get the contract completed, but it is more efficient than waiting for reimbursements in the long run– and it gives you more control over your travel, as you get to organize it yourself.
Family members can come and are welcome, but animals cannot be housed in the apartment.
For prospective visiting scholars who are not US citizens: For tax purposes, Truman treats Ofstad program visitors as employees, not as contractors, which requires anyone who participates in the program to have a social security number. (Relevant visas are also necessary in order to work and be paid in the US.)