Some Truman FacReps may recall that I also blogged the Udall Scholarship committee reading process in 2009. This blog will follow much that same format (including this first post, which is eerily similar to the first post on that blog!).
The blog will begin in earnest on Thursday, February 17, when the FSC members convene at the Marriot Waterfront Hotel in Annapolis, MD for an afternoon orientation. I hope to post frequently – perhaps several times a day – for the three days of the FSC’s deliberations, concluding on Saturday evening, February 19. I would recommend reading this blog in concert with Tara’s Twitter feed to get the best, up-to-date take on what the FSC is doing.
My goal with this blog is twofold: 1) to “lift the curtain” on the reading process that goes into the Truman FSC, letting everyone see what it looks like when the FSC meets, what the committee’s procedures are, and how Truman goes about winnowing the approximately 600 applications to name about 200 finalists, and 2) to share what I learn about the Truman Scholarship from the perspective of a scholarship advisor that will help me advise my own candidates in the future.
What I won’t be doing, obviously, is discussing anything specific about candidates, or giving away details that could be tied to any one applicant. I’ll stick to generalities about how the process is going and what I am learning in the big picture.
I’d like to thank Tara Yglesias at the Truman Foundation for her cooperation in letting me do this – it’s a sign of the Truman Foundation’s continuing trust in FacReps and commitment to transparency that they are allowing me to blog. I will add that I did offer, and Tara has accepted the offer, for her to read and approve each post before it goes up (including this one). I don’t want to accidentally share confidential information, or accidentally post something untrue.
A little about me, just so you know who you are reading – I’ve been the director of social commitment at Grinnell College in Iowa for about 12 years, and as such serve as the college’s scholarship/fellowship advisor. I also advise students on post-graduation service opportunities, administer our own post-grad service program (the Grinnell Corps), advise our Student Government Association, and mentor our first-year Posse from Washington, DC. I’m the vice-president of the National Association of Fellowships Advisors (NAFA), and am looking forward to seeing other Truman FacReps at our conference in Chicago in July. I’ve also previously been a committee member for the Udall Scholarship, Madison Fellowship, and Dell Scholarship, and blogged the NAFA UK trip in 2006.
I hope you’ll check back frequently during the dates of the FSC (again, February 17-19) as the blog gets going in earnest. You should also feel free to email me questions at cutchins@grinnell.edu, and you can share this URL with your Truman nominees as well. They’re not going to learn anything about how we read their individual application, but they might get an interesting look into how the decision-making process goes.
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