Power, Prestige and the World’s Most Famous Scholarship

We dive into the historical past of the Rhodes Scholarship and the world of aggressive grad scholarships on the last episode in our Bootstraps podcast sequence about who will get what alternatives in schooling. And it’s a narrative filled with surprises.

Pros and Cons of ‘Prestige’

For one factor, the founding father of the Rhodes Scholarship, Cecil Rhodes, was a lackluster pupil throughout his personal time at Oxford University, and he by no means graduated. And the founding financing for the award was left in his will, riches from the near-monopoly he created in the diamond commerce.

These days, many faculties and universities run workplaces to educate college students making use of for the Rhodes—and different selective scholarships together with the Fulbright and the Marshall Scholarship that each one have equally complicated software processes. These campus facilities are usually referred to as one thing like the Office of Prestigious Scholarships.

But a minimum of a kind of workplaces has dropped the phrase “prestigious” from its title in recent times, out of concern that the complete framing was a turn-off to some college students who felt they weren’t well-connected sufficient to even make an try at making use of.

“It was really kind of an off-putting word that I think probably put more barriers up for students who might come and talk to me about scholarships than creating the welcoming and inclusive environment that I was striving for,” says LeAnn Adam, who runs the workplace at Oregon State University. Officials there settled on calling it the workplace of “National and Global Scholarships Advising.”

It’s not nearly a reputation, although, Adam says.

“Our philosophy about this work is that it isn’t about winning scholarships,” she says. “It’s about the professional development that students have, the ability to gain transferable skills that they can build in the process of applying for these competitive scholarships—that is professional development.”

And she encourages college students to wrestle with the origin story of the Rhodes Scholarship.

“I feel like as part of the racial reckoning that we are experiencing in this country and in the world, it’s important to confront that conversation,” she says. “In my view, having a conversation about the history of Cecil Rhodes is no different than confronting the history of Confederate statues on college campuses or names on buildings that represent people who no longer reflect our values.”

That’s to not say Adam discourages college students from throwing their hat in the ring although. Instead, she communicates that profitable the award “comes with a lot of responsibility, in that there is a responsibility to do good in the world. To provide some sort of restorative justice for the negative history that’s associated with Cecil Rhodes.”

For some universities, placing extra power into workplaces that coach college students for elite scholarships is a part of a mission to uplift college students who haven’t traditionally received. That’s the case at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, the place president Freeman Hrabowski III takes a private curiosity in serving to college students on his minority-serving campus succeed.

He says he warns college students that they could really feel like they’ve entered a special world in the event that they make it to the interview strategy of the Rhodes.

“I’m saying to my middle-class students, you must be very strong and not be intimidated by the power of wealth when you are competing against people from very, very privileged backgrounds,” Hrabowski says.

Digging For Diamonds

The elaborate choice course of for the Rhodes might appear to be an try to seek out diamonds in the tough. But one diamond skilled we spoke with says that that metaphor is probably not apt.

“Saying that someone is ‘a diamond in the rough’ implies that we know that with certain activities–whether [real or metaphorical polishing]—that person is gonna turn into something really amazing and valuable,” says Jenifer Bellefleur, proprietor of New Gild Jewelers in Minneapolis. “Whereas in real life [with diamonds] we can’t really know what’s inside them until we cut them. Many times, you have to bid on diamond rough that you don’t know whether it’s clean on the inside or not. You might pay a lot of money for it and find that you’ve got yourself some gray pebbles.” In the case of gemologists, the purpose is to shine an space of a tough diamond to attempt to peer into the stone as a lot as doable.”

So then how is it doable to identify college students with the proper qualities for selective alternatives? Leaders of the Rhodes Scholarship haven’t shied away from how difficult their job is to create an equitable search course of.

“Our mission is to make it possible for every student who has the academic and the other qualities—leadership potential and concern for others and, and commitment to truth—we want them to aspire and pursue this,” says Elizabeth Kiss, Warden of Rhodes House and chief of the scholarship program.

She pointed to a rising set of outreach efforts, together with movies on the Rhodes Trust web site strolling candidates via the software course of to assist those that may be at a university that doesn’t have an workplace of prestigious scholarships, no matter they name it.

The Warden of Rhodes House did flinch a bit, although, when advised about the college that took the phrase “prestigious” out of its title. She stated she does wish to be welcoming, nevertheless it’s clear she additionally actually does care about the status of the fellowship.

“I’ve always felt that there is something to be said for aspiring to do really competitive and hard things,” she tells EdSurge. “It takes a lot of work to apply for the Rhode Scholarship, and all of the other major global fellowships. You have to think hard, you have to ask people to write letters of recommendation. You have to write a personal statement, et cetera. “Universities are not always that good at kind of forcing students to try to connect the dots and put it all together and to think about ‘Who am I and what do I stand for?’”

Can a possibility that’s so laborious to win even be accessible? And how is the Rhodes Trust wrestling with the legacy of Cecil Rhodes?

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you take heed to podcasts, or use the participant on this web page.