High Achievers

USC's office of Fellowships and Scholar Programs has dramatically boosted the number of national scholarship winners

ByMarshall Swanson

Nicholas Miller, '01, is studying law at Yale following completion of a Marshall Scholarship that took him to Oxford University in England and a stint working in the office of S.C. Congressman John Spratt.

Caroline Parler Potter, '99, is finishing work on a doctorate at Oxford made possible by her Rhodes Scholarship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Lara Bratcher, '04, is at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine working on an M.D. and master's degree in public health after winning a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.

All three are beneficiaries of Carolina's Office of Fellowships and Scholar Programs, which, since its establishment in 1994, has helped some 300 USC students win more than $8.5 million in highly prestigious national scholarships and fellowships for advanced study at home and abroad.

“On average, there were about 2.5 national scholarship winners per year at USC prior to the establishment of the office, and the average is now up to 23.5 national winners a year,”said office director Novella Beskid. “That's a strong point to illustrate the difference that a centralized effort can make in advisement of students for these awards.”

The need for coordinating student advisement for highly prestigious awards like the Rhodes, Marshall, Goldwater, and Truman scholarships was recognized by several USC administrators and faculty members who realized, “You can't just come in the week before a deadline and say, ‘Here is my application for a Rhodes Scholarship,’ ”Beskid said.

Many of the awards require a University nomination for candidates and limit the number of applicants from each school.

Before the office was started, individual faculty members did yeoman service acting as advisors and mentors for those students applying for the scholarships. But the faculty members were scattered across campus and often worked independently of one another without much coordination.

“What efforts we did have to help students were decentralized,”Beskid said. “There was a lot of vision on the part of the University administration to establish the office, which also coordinates programs for Carolina and McNair Scholars attending the University. It was ahead of the national trend.”

The office is located in Harper College on the Horseshoe with the Honors College, whose students are its prime constituency. “But at the same time, we've had Truman Scholars, Fulbrights, and NSF winners who were non-honors students, so we do serve all of the academically talented undergraduate students on campus,”Beskid said.

An average of 110 students apply for scholarships and fellowships each year. Another 600 700 undergraduates are on a special database created for students who indicate an interest in the awards. Some 60 faculty members serving on standing committees for each award provide advisement assistance.

Beskid sees the process of applying for the scholarships as an important educational and developmental tool for students even if they don't win an award. The process helps them clarify their graduate and career plans and often can result in other unexpected and equally gratifying results.

Such was the case with Matt Hodge, '04, a recent speaker at the office's spring National Signing Day Luncheon at which students affirm their intention to apply for a scholarship in the coming school year.

When he was a USC student majoring in civil and environmental engineering, Hodge applied for a Truman Scholarship for graduate study in MIT's technology and public policy master's program. As part of the Truman application process, he interviewed with an MIT faculty member who helped him realize the MIT program incorporated everything he had talked about wanting to do in his Truman application.

Hodge didn't win the Truman Scholarship. But he did win a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship that still enabled him to attend MIT after graduating from Carolina. “So my being at MIT is directly related with my experience on the Truman application.

“I credit everything that I'm doing now to working with the Fellowships Office. It's been a tremendous experience for me improving my academic and professional opportunities.”