The Derdeyn Travel Scholarship
In 1998, Frieda Bambas established the Bambas Scholarship in honor of her husband Rudolph, who was a professor of Anglo-Saxon in OU’s English Department from 1949 to 1985. A $2,000 scholarship has been available to English students interested in medieval studies every year since that time.
In 2017, it was found that unused money had acculumated in the Bambas scholarship fund. At the instigation of Conrad Derdeyn, nephew and heir of Frieda Derdeyn Bambas, and then-CMRS director Joyce Coleman, the College of Arts & Sciences brokered an agreement with the OU Foundation to use this unexpended income to fund a new Derdeyn-CMRS Scholarship fully in line with the donor’s intent.
The Derdeyn-CMRS Scholarship is set up to support OU graduate students from all departments who are working in medieval and/or Renaissance studies to travel to libraries, archives, or historical sites important for their research. By enabling students to visit and investigate the original sources of the medieval and Renaissance periods, the scholarship allows students to further familiarize themselves with the period and make a serious contribution to research in the field.
The scholarship is awarded once every year. The awardees from 2017 to the present are:
2017: Jason D. Lubinski, OU English, Ph.D. candidate in medieval literature
Travel to England
2018: Cortney Wilmering (now Weil), OU English, Ph.D. candidate in early-modern literature
Travel to England
2019: Brent Purkaple, OU History of Science, Ph.D. candidate working on Jesuit optics in the seventeenth century
Travel to a number of libraries in Europe
2020 (awarded 2021): Katy Krieger, OU English, Ph.D. candidate in early-modern literature
Purchase of academic books
2021: Jared Nabhan, OU English, M.A. candidate in early-modern literature
Travel to Huntington Library
2021: Rachel Tharp, OU English, Ph.D. candidate in medieval literature
Travel to Italy, re Boccaccio manuscripts that might have been
seen by Chaucer
2022: No applicants
2023: Kristin Raffa, OU History of Science, Ph.D. candidate working on the meteorology of Albertus Magnus
Travel in Italy to visit libraries to check on manuscripts
2024: Theresa Marks, OU History of Art, PhD candidate working on the exegetical meaning in the hagiographic relief sculptures at the cathedral of San Cerbone (ca. 1150-1325)
Travel to Italy to see the artwork in situ
