2004 has been a particularly gratifying year to be a Fulbright Program Adviser at our little college on the prairie. A primarily undergraduate liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1500, Nebraska Wesleyan University students have received four Fulbright scholarships. Preparing students to apply begins well before their senior year, however. We are fortunate to have a Prestige Scholarship Adviser who is given one course release per year to assist with recruiting potential applicants for ten different prestige scholarships, including Truman, Mellon, Gilman, Rotary, and of course, the Fulbright. He asks professors of our required first semester course, the Liberal Arts Seminar, for the names of first-year students who seem particularly academically successful and thus might make promising applicants. During their second semester of college, he asks these students if they would like to be members of the Society of Scholars, a group that meets for meals with professors and learns the making of a successful applicant. Potential applicants are encouraged to be well-rounded, to read widely and engage with courses in a variety of disciplines, in addition to attending lectures by visiting speakers and participating in service learning. If they are not studying an international language, they are encouraged to do so and to attend the various conversation tables (French, German, Spanish) at a nearby coffeehouse. These students may consult with me as FPA as early as their second semester of college, though some do not become aware of the Fulbright scholarship until their fall semester of their senior year. In addition to the Society of Scholars, we also provide a one-hour scholarship honors course that students are encouraged to take during their sophomore or junior year. The scholarship honors course prepares them for the details of applying and includes practice writing personal narratives and research proposals as well as practice interviewing.

Finally, their senior year, applicants for the Fulbright submit drafts of their research proposals and curricula vitae by the first week of September. After attending an FPA workshop led by Walter Jackson, I encourage students to think of the curriculum vitae as an intellectual autobiography showing how their academic lives have led them to the point of applying for a Fulbright and how they and their career possibilities will be enhanced or changed as a result of the Fulbright. The research proposal should answer the questions:

-- Why you?
-- What makes you particularly qualified to conduct this research?
-- Why this particular host country?
-- Why a Fulbright? Why must you do the research there?
-- What contribution will you make to the academic dialogue within the host culture?

The five-member committee reads and comments on the drafts providing suggestions for enlivening prose, narrowing focus, cutting needless material, and developing key concepts. We ask for revised drafts before the campus interview. We use the revised drafts to help us focus our interview questions. We continue to make suggestions for major revision and may help with proofreading or editing the final draft. Being an English professor and teaching writing as revision gives me a particular advantage when motivating students to revise. Their essays only improve through rewriting, and students have great difficulty transforming their essays without a second pair of eyes to see their first drafts clearly. Firm deadlines for drafts also assist students in having the self-discipline to shape the essays as rigorously as possible.

Given that we have no funding, I have no magical way to entice faculty to serve on the Campus Fulbright Evaluation Committee. Though some faculty have had to withdraw from the committee because of the enormous amount of time it takes, I have no difficulty finding sufficient faculty who enjoy serving. Currently there are five of us from five different departments, two men and three women. They believe it is important work and often see their service simply as an extension of the kind of teaching and advising we already do at NWU. I ask the Provost to write letters of thanks to them and to their department chairs (as does the Prestige Scholarship Adviser). I believe faculty participate because they care about high academic standards and they want to see our students succeed.

Our process of preparing students to apply for prestige scholarships seems to have been successful. Our four scholarships this year include two English Teaching Assistantships to Taiwan and Korea and two full scholarships to Colombia and Turkey. This is the second time since the year 2000 we have received four Fulbrights. Students repeatedly thanked the professors on our campus committee for their assistance in reading drafts and providing guidance. Perhaps the process works so well on our campus because we are an undergraduate teaching college and accustomed to working very closely with students and advisees. Being available to answer their questions and giving them a great deal of individual attention is part of who we are.