President's Column In my welcoming remarks at the Portland "regional" workshop in June, I commented that our gathering was a significant event in NAFA's development—signaling that our organization would continue to grow in size and importance.  True, we'd had a successful first conference in Tulsa, the list-serve continues to be an active and informative tool for increasing numbers of our colleagues, and a core of dedicated officers and board members are functioning efficiently and creatively for us all.  The trip to England certainly illustrated that to be the case. But what about "staying power?"  Now we were asking colleagues to join officially to receive benefits, and the first "rush" of excitement over our new friends and activities had subsided: Would there be enough to do? Could we add new programs? Could we keep "veterans" stimulated, and most important, attract new members to the fold? I believe all those questions were answered with a resounding "yes" in Portland. Conceived as a "regional workshop" by your executive group, and planned and executed by Jane Curlin at Willamette University, the program did indeed bring the NAFA messages (both in presentations and through yet another of our now-famous "tome-binders!") to our friends in the West and Northwest, but demonstrated continuing national appeal with several returnees and new faces from all over the country. I've mentioned to several people that an informal poll I took during breaks, and while sampling the best of Portland's seafood and micro-brews (grand idea, Jane!), indicated that the presentations, information, and foundation participation still felt fresh, in spite of similarly structured events in Fayetteville and Tulsa, plus several other regional events over the years sponsored by the Truman Foundation.  Many thanks to all of you: from Jane to the students, new faces and old, college representatives and foundation officials, for a weekend we won't forget, and which provided yet another boost to NAFA prospects. I should let you know what else has been happening, and will happen, as we continue to reach more colleagues and thereby positively affect the educational careers of good students.  The executive board held two meetings in Portland, one a general meeting to refine policies and keep probing for the ways to serve all of you. That our membership continues to grow, of course, reflects the importance of our work and our determination to make scholarship competition a vital and ethical part of university life for all.  Beyond that, it also is the result of some amazingly competent and dedicated work by your officers, notably treasurer John Richardson.  Since Portland, your officers have continued to anticipate your needs by exploring legal issues surrounding legal incorporation--as many of our activities for conferences and travel require significant legal contracts and planning for efficient and reliable financial practices.  You will be advised about that as further decisions are made. Another meeting just before we left Portland focused strictly on the 2003 conference in Denver at the end of July/beginning of August, and the reports from conference planner Beth Powers and Vice-President Suzanne McCray were extremely attractive—indicating we're still going to help those who are new to our operations as well as those who want to become better at what they do, no matter how experienced they are.  I invite you to contact Beth with your ideas for programming as soon as possible.  I've been impressed by how many of you have ongoing self-studies, or questions concerning other campus practices, and you could possibly find yourself making a presentation, assisting someone with data, or just volunteering for one of the many jobs that will keep things moving during our program. Enjoy this issue, thanks for your cooperation and support, and most of all—good luck to you and your students for the new school year! Robert Graalman Oklahoma State University Report from the U.K. Last May 32 NAFA members spent one to two weeks in England and Scotland to learn more about the British system of higher education. The trip was conceived and organized by a committee consisting of Elizabeth (Betsy) Vardaman, Ann Brown, Suzanne McCray, and Mary Tolar. Their imaginative ideas as to appropriate activities and their abundant contacts in the world of British higher education opened numerous doors that few of us could have managed on our own. Highlights: Special sessions with the British Council and the British Council/Scotland, in which we developed a stronger understanding of the British council's mission and projects; reviewed British higher education; and learned to evaluate degree options, courses and university rankings. Site visits to eleven Universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and The London School of Economics, but also "less well known" institutions such as Westminster and Oxford Brookes, enabling us to develop an understanding of a full range of educational opportunities in the UK. Meetings with Dr. John Rowett, Warden of Rhodes House, and Dr. Gordon Johnson, President of Wolfson College (Cambridge University) and Provost of the Gates Cambridge Trust. Special events: Tour, evensong and dinner at Christ Church College, Oxford University Dinner at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, hosted by University of Cambridge Private tour of Westminster Abbey by night Farewell dinner at Prestonfield House in Edinburgh Mary Lee Ledbetter (College of the Holy Cross) compiled a very complete and lengthy narrative of the first week of the U.K. trip. Her notes reflect information presented by representatives from the British Council, Oxford and the Rhodes Trust, and the Gates Cambridge Trust. We hope that this information and notes on the second week of the trip will be available eventually to NAFAans. Submitted by Ann Brown, Ohio University What You Need To Know About the Udall Scholarship In March 2002 I departed the damp and chill Northwest for sunny Tucson, to serve on the selection committee for the Morris K. Udall Scholarship. Honored by the invitation, I looked forward to hours of reading hundreds of applications; gleaning useful bits of information to squirrel away and take back to campus and colleagues, and not least for this transplanted Okie, a few glorious days of southwest sunshine. All my expectations were amply met. I learned a great deal about how Udall Scholars are selected. No longer do I wonder that some of my candidates didn't win a scholarship; rather, I marvel that any won at all. I read scores of applications from the most inspiring individuals who had started recycling programs on their campus, participated in international environmental conferences, and volunteered at Ground Zero. I also gained insight into the nuts and bolts of the selection process. These observations I share with you. How the Applications Are Read Applications are read by state, grouped by region (which is often geographical, but not always). On average, readers award three scholarships per region. Readers work in pairs. Our backgrounds varied, from professors of environmental policy and science, EPA officials, directors of scholarships and Honors programs, to representatives of Native American interests. (The Native American health care and tribal policy applications are read separately.) I was paired with an environmental sciences professor. Each application is read twice, and in some instances three times. We had two and a half days to read approximately 450 applications, a grueling schedule (which the Foundation assuaged somewhat by keeping us well supplied with chocolate, chips, and more substantial snacks). We were urged to read and evaluate each application—including letters of recommendation—in 10 to 15 minutes, which, for the first few hours, I was unable to do. Soon, however, I acquired a sense of the "typical" Udall application, and a feel for just how competitive the scholarship could be. How the Applications Are Rated Readers use a rating sheet with four principal categories: commitment to improving or preserving the environment, or to health care or tribal public policy; academic achievement; the essay; personal characteristics—the criteria include activism, volunteerism, evidence of well-roundedness, and references. A fifth category is for discretionary points, which may be awarded for overcoming adversity, balancing family and/or work responsibilities, or extraordinary achievement. I found that I was rarely inclined to award discretionary points, and only in truly exceptional circumstances. Applications are rated from 1 (below average) to 5 (outstanding) for a possible total of 23 (including 3 discretionary points). I soon realized that a substantial number of applicants were either "good" or "excellent." The best applicants will be very strong in three areas: demonstrated commitment, academics, and personal characteristics, or truly outstanding in two of the three. Because the essay has a category to itself, it is weighted far more heavily than I had previously realized, accounting for one fourth of the total score. Essays are read for content; quality of writing; critical analysis; and relevance to the applicant's career or educational goals. Most applicants scored only a 2 or 3 on the essay out of a possible 5. What I Learned a) Activities matter. Looking over the Udall application, I find five separate opportunities to list and describe the variety of ways students can "demonstrate commitment" to preserving or restoring the environment. Commitment emerges in an applicant's willingness to search out opportunities for volunteerism; activism in support of environmental causes; and assumption of leadership roles with groups and organizations. Advisors should make sure the student's commitment to the environment, health care or tribal public policy shines through in every answer on the application. Beyond such commitment, readers also look for a breadth of interests and activities ("well-rounded" is a criterion). Morris K. Udall—athlete, pilot, lawyer, activist and public servant—really does serve as a role model. b) The essay is a critical component of the application. Students should address both aspects of the topic thoroughly. The Foundation suggests a two-part structure; in the first section, analyze a significant speech or legislative act of Congressman Udall; in the second, integrate that into a discussion of its impact on the student's interests, studies and career goals. Its relevance—the link to the student's interests and projected career—is essential, and is where most essays fall short. Readers also appreciate (and reward) some freshness of perspective and originality of voice, so applicants should be encouraged to spend some time familiarizing themselves with Udall's significant speeches and legislative acts. The Udall Foundation's website (www.udall.gov) has many helpful links, particularly to The University of Arizona archives. c) Answer Question #7 (additional personal information). Take advantage of the invitation to address an interest, activity, research project, or anything else that hasn't been expanded upon elsewhere in the application. Making a plea for the scholarship based on financial need or hardship is a wasted opportunity. d) Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. As a former writing instructor, I tend to obsess—and require that my students do as well—over every word and punctuation mark. Readers don't parse the application—we don't have time. As long as it's accurate, concise, and grammatical, from now on I won't worry (or harass my students). However, neatness, legibility, and presentation do count. It's worth the candidate's effort to submit a clean copy of the application, in which the information is carefully and judiciously organized (presented, for example in paragraphs and not one run-on sentence), and where a little white space relieves the eyes. The experience was enlightening, exhausting, and intensely rewarding—and I'd jump at the chance to do it again. Jane Curlin Willamette University Meandering Into Mediocrity: When Interviews Take a Wrong Turn As I began to reflect on the topic of interviews, it occurred to me that the unsuccessful interview might initially be considered through the lens of its opposite: the vivacious, delightful or natural interview. And in making these considerations, I have discovered that interviews reverse Tolstoy's famous dictum on families: unhappy interviews are more or less all alike, but happy interviews are each happy in their own ways. Good interviews "take off," become memorable and distinctive in styles too numerous to recount. Their end results yield an indelible and dynamic sense of a candidate, so much so that I and others like me – seasoned veterans of scholarship interview committees - can still recall particular candidates and our conversations with them years after the event. I remember, for example, one candidate who had the misfortune to be in the middle of a thoughtful response to a complex question when a grandfather clock looming just behind him began to chime the hour in intrusively loud tones. The candidate stopped what he was saying, turned to look at the clock, and then exclaimed, "At least it's not noon!" He won the heart of the committee, and almost certainly the award, through the spontaneity of his good-natured resilience. Indeed, my memory remains littered with fragments of stellar moments from interviews like this one. Without becoming reductive about what makes a successful interview – remember, they are each happy in their own ways! - it seems that many of the strong ones feel conversational, and have committee members scampering for the next question. At times such interviews turn performative: the candidate holds a committee in thrall, in silence, as he or she expounds a topic (or, literally, gives a performance) about which he or she knows a great deal. Committees of which I have been a part have enjoyed candidate presentations of operatic arias, dramatic monologues, traditional English folk music and original poetry. In some cases we might be stunned into silence by a candidate's dignified, unfettered revelation of her own abuse as a child and its role as a catalyst in her choice of life path, or in others moved to tears by a candidate's unrehearsed sorrow during discussion of a recently deceased parent. And of course, there are always the candidates whose own passion for their subject area bubbles over into the whole room. After such interviews, the entire committee feels compelled to rush out and learn whatever we can about nineteenth-century Lutheran hymnals, Maori ceremonials, making jam out of ginger and apricots or betting wisely in the Trifecta. In these cases the interview functions as a kind of marriage between a candidate's interior life, as revealed on paper, and his or her exterior presence, as manifested through interaction with others. So what happens when the marriage does not occur, or goes sour, or never lives up to its promise? Again, consider that both successful and unsuccessful interviews begin with the strong paper application. Strong applications make the committee want to meet a candidate in person. Most unsuccessful interviews thus share an element of disappointment regarding the fit between an application and a candidate's conversation, especially in light of the scholarship's mission. Disappointments with respect to high expectations, despite similarity of character, often occur along a spectrum of possibility with extremes at either pole. At one end lies cohesion with respect to the whole candidacy. When a candidate's presence does not have a consistent "tone" with the paper application, especially with the essay, the disjunction between interior and exterior voice confounds a committee's attempt to understand the candidate. A committee member, for example, might inquire about something of interest on paper, like an activity or a club or a particular course, but the candidate does not or cannot reveal any intimate or true knowledge of it. The place of the activity or club or course in the application does not "ring true." Perhaps the candidate has not been selective in presenting only the most meaningful material and thus has forgotten the import of an activity or club. Maybe he or she has not thought sufficiently about the place of an activity or club or course in the candidacy and thus cannot say much of interest when questioned. In this vein, insufficient reflection about what appears on paper remains an obstacle for most candidates. Sometimes candidates become habituated to viewing themselves through the veil of their most obvious accomplishments, with the result that they do not anticipate what might seem distinctive to an interviewer familiar with high achievers in conventional fields. At other times, a mock interview process has skewed the candidate's attention to a specific set of application answers rather than directing his or her attention to everything on paper as potential material for questioning. Imagine two cases that illustrate these points. In one instance, a candidate with a superb academic record but a rather diffuse array of extracurricular activities is questioned about being President of her dormitory "blues club." After follow-up inquiries to an initially vague response, it becomes apparent that the "blues club" consists of two or three friends on a hall who sometimes get together to listen to records…and even this lasted for just six months. A committee's follow-up questions to vague responses will often act as a series of small punctures to an application full of hot air and hyperbole, and once the effect of the punctures is apparent, an interview can rarely recover from the residual feeling of minor deceit. A second case of disappointment involves not hyperbole but humility: a candidate does not seize an opportunity to reveal a genuine accomplishment that he had neglected to think about prior to the interview. In this situation, an interview that might have started in a generic fashion gains momentum, but time is drawing to a close. One committee member asks about an unusual advanced mathematics course - number theory - on the candidate's mostly humanistic transcript. Instead of demonstrating his mastery of higher maths and linking that to logic (part of his major field in philosophy), the candidate replies, "Oh, I am taking that just for fun!" While the purity of motivation expressed in such an answer might well be admirable, it adds nothing of substance to the conversation and thus holds the candidate back from winning a scholarship. He misses a chance to augment his accomplishment in philosophy with a capacity to think comparatively among different disciplines – a capacity he actually possesses but does not actualize in an unexpected moment, having only thought about the more obvious aspects of his candidacy like writing prizes and arts criticism. One can never tell what a committee will take up, so candidates must review the paper application with "naked eyes" and try to see it as a stranger might – as fresh material for discussion and revelation. While cohesion between the paper application and the candidate's conversational presence remains important, this can sometimes ossify to the point of stasis, which kills an interview through conversational inflexibility. Here we have the other pole on the spectrum of disappointment: a candidate appears as "packaged" or unwilling to take risks with questions beyond what was committed on paper. In such situations, an interviewer might sense that a candidate has taken too literally the notion that his or her candidacy has a theme, or a message, or a central strength to which everything else must point or defer. For example, when asked about a specific course or activity, a candidate will jump on the question directly because he or she has rehearsed everything from every angle. In addition, the candidate will often direct the response back to something not particularly relevant to the question at hand. In a case like this, a candidate could be questioned about the influence of a volunteer activity on her thinking about economic policy. Instead of responding to the actual question, the candidate says something resembling this: "I have found voluntarism to be tremendously useful in cultivating my leadership skills. These show up most strongly in my role of Captain of the rowing team, a position to which I was elected." The attempt by the candidate to control the contours of the interview becomes exposed, calling attention to the artifice with which she has crafted the candidacy. Paradoxically, there is some degree of mental agility involved in efforts at redirection in the face of an unexpected or offbeat question, but normally not enough creative agility to cover one's own tracks. As with art, too labored an affect in an interview usually distracts one's audience from the substance of a response, to the means by which it was achieved. A candidate might even reveal a level of guilelessness that has its own charm but nevertheless seals his fate. Picture a brilliant but shy and socially awkward candidate who is asked a question designed to put him at ease. The candidate jerks his head up suddenly, looks at the committee directly for the first time, and gasps, "They didn't prepare me for that question!" An endearing remark of naïve honesty, but one unlikely to win a scholarship. The poles of disappointment, then, might be characterized as being unformed at one end and overwrought at the other. An interview does after all have some kinship with performance. One candidate might be under-rehearsed when he has not been sufficiently reflective about himself and his whole application prior to the interview (the number theory course), but another can be over-rehearsed when she draws upon her personal set of stock responses to an interviewer's genuine question (the rowing captain). What both extremes have in common, and what draws them together under the umbrella of disappointing interviews, is a lack of sensibility about spontaneity in human dialogue. The very best interviews evolve out of their kinship with performance and into the conversational space created by solicitous, genuine exchange. And true exchange requires a refined capacity for listening, an attunement to one's conversational environment that facilitates natural adaptation without losing one's personal presence. In other words, the best interviews achieve a symbiotic giving over between candidate and committee, where risks are taken and accepted in good faith but where listening and speaking take on a pattern of their own. Having been on the candidate's end of a bad interview more than once, I believe that most of us can sense when an interview feels stultified or unnatural, or when it out and out dies, whether we are on the committee or in the hot seat. Years ago, in one interview where I really blew it, I was asked which activity I would choose if forced to do so, singing or acting. I countered that I would choose directing and tried to launch into my justification; I was cut off, and rightly so, as I had not attended to the question. Indeed, attention to the question and its context cannot be overemphasized. Here's an extreme portrait of this possibility. A scholarship candidate from a university in the same state as a committee member contributes a weekly column to the major metropolitan newspaper in that state. The column covers the "College Beat" and ostensibly represents student views from a variety of institutions statewide. The candidate is asked how he goes about getting material for his columns, and replies that, essentially, he speaks to a few of his friends and occasionally calls an acquaintance at a nearby college for additional views on whatever topic is discussed. When pressed on the reliability of this method as a way of considering college student views from a variety of institutions across the state, the candidate waves his hand blithely in the air and says, with no small degree of confidence, "Oh, there aren't really many others that matter. Besides us, there's one other in the city, and, let's see, there's a state school somewhere further south that's pretty good at agricultural stuff…" The committee member from the same state then interrupts with, "Yes, I teach there." The candidate, whose hand is still waving dismissively in the air, halts and says, "Oh." Having been given a sheet with the committee's names and affiliations prior to the interview, the candidate has clearly failed to notice the relevance of the affiliation in this case. He also seems to be unaware, despite a year as an editorial columnist for the state newspaper, that his state has more than ten institutions of higher learning. Candidates can rarely recover from these kinds of gaffes, though perhaps they learn something about perceptual presumption. To separate actual reflection from cultural or academic presumption, a committee will sometimes pose a particular question to every candidate, a question that provides a yardstick for measuring the field against a consistent standard. Picture this scenario. All candidates are thrown a genuinely difficult question, a question posed by the same person in the same tones at the same point in each interview. If you could choose two social problems to address, and you had to spend one billion dollars on one problem and ten thousand dollars on the other, what two problems would you choose and how would you allocate the funds? Most candidates will show limited knowledge and limited imagination on both ends of the monetary spectrum, though occasionally a candidate might give an original answer to one of the problems and its concomitant budget (probably not both, alas!). But if the second answer is truly insensible of things like local struggles on the one hand or obstacles to massive problem-solving on the other, it can undermine the good part of the total response. So, a candidate with a strong theoretical grasp of fiscal matters might tackle the billion-dollar question nicely but then continue, in a casual manner, "Ten thousand dollars. Hm. That's such a small amount of money." A response like this would offset the good one because it betrays a lack of understanding about what constitutes a lot of money not only for some local social problems but also for some nations whose currency cannot approach our own for value. By contrast, a clever and realistic answer to the ten-thousand dollar part of the question would be offset by a billion-dollar reply like, "I'd give it to research on AIDS in Africa," when a candidate cannot identify the African countries with the most pressing AIDS related problems. These offset examples make an important point. Very few interviews careen off course sharply. Most meander into the merely disappointing. Disappointing interviews, while inevitably a corollary of high expectations from time to time, can nevertheless occur less frequently when the candidate seeks the subtle balance between reflective preparation on the one hand and readiness to follow an unexpected direction on the other. An unwillingness to engage with a surprising line of questioning can shut a candidate off from the committee. Suppose a particularly distinguished candidate with policy aspirations is responding eloquently to a series of scholarly inquiries about the spending habits of low-income citizens. Tired of this line of questioning, a committee member whose professional activity had bearing on policy groups and the pubic sector throws the candidate a curve ball. He begins by asking the candidate about where she makes her own retail purchases. The candidate, while a bit befuddled, gives an honest answer. The committee member then asks the candidate if she has ever set foot in a K-Mart. The entire committee then sees the dilemma play out on the candidate's face: should she tell the truth and say no? Or should she fudge and imply that she has been to K-Mart, as she is uncertain where the question is heading? Assume the candidate fudges, saying something like, "I believe so, maybe." The committee member leading the discussion might question the candidate's readiness to pronounce on public policy when she cannot recall visiting a place where the retail patterns of the group in question would be visible beyond academic theory. Such questions, while uncomfortable not only for the candidate but sometimes even for other committee members, can be illuminating for everyone. A genuine case: I once asked a candidate, who was writing policy for the mayor's drug task force in his city, if he actually knew any drug addicts; if he had met a single one. Until this question, the candidate had been volleying smoothly but almost impersonally with the committee. By pausing and answering the question honestly – the answer was no – the candidate smiled in resignation and in doing so slipped back into himself. The rest of the interview went beautifully and he won the scholarship. Precise but cheerful awareness of one's inexperience is perhaps a virtue we see too seldom in interview committees Campus scholarship committees can assist their candidates in this regard as they attempt to balance what has been presented on paper and what cannot be anticipated in any interview discussion. Advise candidates to be selective when highlighting elements of a candidacy - to avoid exaggeration about one's accomplishments but also to embrace those modest details that truly characterize one's values and achievements. Try to prepare candidates for interviews by striking a proportional mix, for them, between justified self-confidence on the one hand and comfortable admission of uncertainty on the other. Urge them to consider and discuss what they perceive to be the "holes" in their education. Do not attempt to mold the candidate into someone he or she is not or cannot be, but instead celebrate the virtues of each candidate honestly in the nomination letter without creating false expectations for interview committees. Seek to heighten the candidate's awareness of his or her personal strengths without confining the candidacy to just a few of his or her accomplishments. Support especially those candidates whose social background or personal situation might make them hesitant to behave naturally; whose interviews often take on a quality of holding something back – what I call the "muted interview." I am thinking, to name just a few examples, about candidates who are gay and unsure of how this will play out with a particular committee; students whose racial and ethnic identities may or may not gel with general assumptions about their importance to this candidate; candidates who profess a politics unpopular with most faculty or scholarship committees; students from blue-collar, low income or genuinely impoverished backgrounds who could be intimidated by upscale interview settings or competitive peer behavior in such settings; shy students who nevertheless merit a great deal of consideration in meeting a scholarship program's mission; disabled, disfigured or non-traditional candidates of any sort; and candidates whose applications, for whatever reason, do not meet a program's criteria in conventional ways but nevertheless emerge as exceptional for reasons worthy of a committee's serious consideration. Most of all encourage candidates to take the ultimate risk when going through the door to an interview: the risk of finally, despite the arduous, long preparation, of putting it out of mind and being, respectfully, in the moment, oneself. Cheryl Foster University of Rhode Island
		Copyright © 2002 National Association of Fellowships Advisors Site by Midwest New Media, LLC