Special Programs & Initiatives

Support What You Love
Each Emerson experience is unique. Some students spend hours upon hours on film sets or in rehearsal studios while others are galavanting around Europe or traveling to their next away game. Every path taken on the journey to obtain an Emerson degree is different, but no matter how students fill their days, their experience is one worth celebrating.

This Giving Day, we are asking our community to support one of our many impact funds, which will strengthen a specific department, program, or initiative of the College.

Make a Gift
Student Assistance Fund
The Student Assistance Fund is a need-based fund, that makes small awards, to help eligible students with indirect costs of attendance such as books, printing and copying costs, film, developing, other required course supplies, personal items, transportation, and food. This fund was established primarily through the generous support of Emerson staff and faculty members, demonstrating their commitment to the success of Emerson students inside and outside the classroom.

Internationalization & Equity Fund
Students and faculty come to Emerson from around the world with dreams of telling their stories, transforming industries, and reimagining the way we communicate and express ourselves. The Internationalization and Equity Fund was created to fuel this transformation: it will help us uplift the voices of our marginalized students and faculty through new and existing equity programs and initiatives, infuse internationally-focused changes into our curriculum, and support equity-focused education abroad programming.

Education Abroad Assistance Fund
At Emerson, we are shaping these future global leaders: individuals who will transform industries, question the status quo, and drive change and innovation. As we continue to build a bold and borderless Emerson, we must also remove financial barriers that keep students from expanding their global view. The Education Abroad Assistance Fund will accomplish this goal: it will open doors for more Emerson students to immerse themselves in new cultures, transform their world views, and pioneer new pathways in fields that shape our global society, culture, and future.

Pride Fund
For many alumni, Emerson College represents a pivotal phase of their Pride experience. Emerson students, alumni, faculty, staff, families, and friends have created an environment rooted in acceptance and inclusion for their peers to discover and embrace the most authentic versions of themselves. The impact of this culture inspired three queer Emerson alumni to establish the Emerson Pride Fund back in 2021 in an attempt to help ensure that this culture would remain cemented into the fabric of the College for years to come. Emerson's Pride Fund helps foster a safe, secure, and welcoming environment for all members of the LGBTQIA+ community at Emerson.

Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI)
We are committed to transforming the meaning and impact of higher education in Massachusetts by making college education more accessible to people who are incarcerated. EPI provides students incarcerated at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk (MCI Norfolk) with an opportunity to earn a bachelor’s degree in media, literature and culture from Emerson College.

ArtsEmerson
ArtsEmerson is the professional presenting and producing organization at Emerson College, based in the heart of downtown Boston. Founded in 2010—the year the U.S. Census confirmed there was no single cultural majority in Boston—we set out to foster positive change in this historically segregated city. We did not see this change as a byproduct of the work, but rather, as the primary purpose. ArtsEmerson aims to tear down traditional cultural divisions and invest in a vibrant, connected Boston. Help ArtsEmerson as we present remarkable, thought-provoking contemporary works and community engagement programs, and make artistic experiences in Boston more inclusive and affordable.

WERS
As a listener supported station, WERS depends on the generosity of members to continue bringing music discovery to the airwaves. Join the community of thousands by making your gift today.

Ploughshares
Ploughshares has published quality literature since 1971. Our award-winning literary journal is published four times a year; our lively literary blog publishes new writing daily. Since 1989, we have been based at Emerson College in downtown Boston.

Join Emerge
Are you in Emerge yet? Join us! It’s the online community where Emersonians connect, support, and celebrate each other. Connect with people in (and outside of) your industry, learn about job opportunities and upcoming career events, ask for and offer resources, find your old friends, and be part of an ongoing and fruitful conversation designed to support you on your own career journey.

Listen to Making It Big in 30 Minutes
What does it mean to make it big? In each episode of Making It Big in 30 Minutes you will meet an Emersonian who’s Making It. Making a living, making a difference and sometimes, making it up as they go along. As far as we’re concerned, if you’re making something, you’ve made it … big time.