January 20, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Lucky Few and the Worthy Many
edited by Alice Stone Ilchman, Warren F. Ilchman, and Mary Hale Tolar
Winning a major competitive scholarship like the Rhodes or the Marshall can be the launching pad for a highly successful career. But do scholarship competitions select the best candidates, and enable those people to get the most from their experiences? This book, based on a conference in 2002 sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, asks those questions of foundation leaders and other professionals and examines how to strengthen national and international scholarship programs.
Alice Stone Ilchman of the Thomas Watson Foundation, Warren F. Ilchman of the Open Society Institute, and Mary Hale Tolar of the Kansas Campus Compact introduce essays that offer advice on improving the selection, implementation, and evaluation processes of scholarship competitions. Contributors discuss how to select candidates who are not only talented but will translate their abilities into actions that will have a positive impact. Other advice includes increasing the diversity of the applicant pool, making the selection process fairer, and developing a systematic approach to picking scholars.
The book also focuses on how to enrich the scholarship experience and ensure that it advances the grant maker’s mission. It debates what sort of orientation and other support recipients should receive, and what kinds of contact foundations and other sponsors should maintain with the alumni of their scholarship programs. An essay on the evaluation of scholarships provides advice on determining a program’s objectives and how well the selection and implementation processes jibe with those goals. The final chapter summarizes an unfinished study on the backgrounds and career paths of past Rhodes Scholars and finds that the scholarship “continues to be a highly effective institution in the preparation of prominent individuals.”
Publisher: Indiana University Press, 601 North Morton Street, Bloomington, Ind. 47404-3797; (812) 855-4203; fax (812) 855-8507; iupress@indiana.edu; http://iupress.indiana.edu; 208 pages; $34.95; ISBN 0-253-34476-x.
