Scholarship Advising: a View From the Trenches

If, as Nancy Twiss once remarked, winning scholarships is the "icing" on the cake of advising,

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her 16 years at Kansas State University were an almost uninterrupted, sumptuous dessert. She was an extraordinarily successful fellowship adviser long before the practice was in vogue.

During her tenure, which ended in 1996, a total of 60 Kansas State students won Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, or Goldwater scholarships -- one of the best records of any state university.

Her proteges advise students at the University of Illinois at Chicago and help run the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. Her generosity and lucid formulation of the philosophy of advising have made her the guru of the new scholarship movement. The following is adapted from a 1999 speech she delivered at a national scholarship conference in Fayetteville, Ark.:

The value of advising: Most of us will not find answers to the causes of cancer, or solve the problems of homelessness, or defuse international conflicts, but we feel that through our advising, we may be able to make a small but pivotal contribution to our students' ultimate work. ... It seems to me that [our students] represent an unequivocal reply to Margaret Mead, when she famously said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed [people] can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Overcoming tears and fears: We try to help our finalists relax by telling them stories given to us by our previous candidates. (None are about our students.) One was the story of a Rhodes candidate who swears he said, "I don't know" 17 times during his interview ... and won. The second is about a Truman finalist who told the regional panel she wouldn't answer a question she interpreted as being sexist. On leaving the interview, she burst into tears, not knowing then that the courage of her convictions had made her a scholar.

The third is the story of a national finalist who responded to his first interview question by throwing up. He was ushered out while the panel took care of everything. The student was brought back in ... and won.

Respecting the student: I could act as sounding board, ask unending Socratic questions, and serve as devil's advocate so long as the student's autonomy as author remained absolute regarding substance, style, diction, everything. I liked to say to a nominee, "It's my role to be in your corner not as a judge, but as mentor." It's also probably my role to make you miserable. For example, even after you've finished the umpteenth draft of some paragraph, I may ask what you think about the assumptions -- in the first sentence.

The best-laid plans: One kind of dilemma we have faced is what to do about circumstances during a candidacy that virtually assure the candidate will not win. Some examples: a Truman nominee, whose anguish became acute near the time of the regional interview about whether to follow the activist branch in his faith or switch to the pietistic one, which would require near seclusion; a student who, the month his Goldwater science application was to be submitted, decided to become an economics major; another Truman nominee who sustained a head injury that intermittently made it hard for her to respond logically, particularly under pressure. There were no selection-committee proposals to withdraw these students' candidacies; our confidence in the potential of these nominees was unshaken.

Beyond 'Pygmalion': Often, people outside the university would say, "I suppose the scholarship process is all about making the student stand out in some way ... and then selling that student." This always made me uneasy. It hints that a gimmick -- or who the candidate appears to be -- is more important than who the candidate is. ...

Two of our scholars were giggling appreciatively one day, about the Pygmalion syndrome -- how the application process had utterly transformed them from Liza Doolittle waifs to scholars ready to move mountains. Actually, of course, the application process doesn't turn candidates into anything. It helps them to be who they most truly are, and want to become.

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