For the second year in a row, all three Dartmouth nominees for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship for Aspiring Teachers of Color won the national award. They are among eight Dartmouth students to recently receive national awards for scholarly achievement. In addition to the Rockefeller Fellowship recipients, four students were awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation Award and one was accepted into the Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Program.
The Rockefeller Fellowship aims to support a diverse body of educators and help students with graduate school and loan payments.
One of the recipients, Kenneth Muigai '07, an English major, said that participating in the Summer Education at Dartmouth program, where he served as a mentor to children in the area, solidified his career path.
"I had a great opportunity to be a big brother and mentor for students in under-resourced schools," Muigai said. "I guess the director and the faculty took note of that. I also took a course in contemporary issues in education which really enlightened me concerning the need for teachers of color in public schools."
Gwen Rudie '07, a Goldwater recipient, said that although the scholarship is for students conducting research in math, science or engineering, the foundation looks for applicants whose work contributes to society as a whole.
"They really appear to be looking for that you understand how your field contributes in some way to the overwhelming good of society," Rudie said. "They don't want necessarily science for science; they want to see that you can voice a strong opinion of how this is important for humanity."
Rudie, a physics and astronomy double-major, wrote about her research on supernova remnants with physics and astronomy professor Robert Fesen in her scholarship application. Her proposal included a discussion of the need to study these remnants, including heavy elements produced in the explosion, and their link to the origin of human life.
Gerald J. Smith, the president of the 20-year-old Goldwater Scholarship Program, said that the applicants for the scholarship are always extremely qualified.
"The applicants are extraordinarily bright and academically excellent achievers," Smith said. "We get the cream of the crop from all the schools who participate because each school does an initial selection and we then get their four best nominees, without exception."
Mita Sharma '08, a neuroscience major and chemistry minor, was accepted into the highly competitive Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Program, an international competition whose main goal is to groom future leaders through the sharing of ideas across national borders.
Sharma, one of only 16 U.S. recipients, said that she looks forward to developing a proposal with other honorees to begin a global project.
"The students are trying to plan a project and apply for one of the grants that they offer," Sharma said. "We want to make a change in the world and incorporate everyone's strengths and everyone's interests in this project. We've got plans and are going to be getting a proposal in."
Kristin O'Rourke, the College's scholarship adviser, said that students like Sharma who want to be competitive when it comes to national scholarships should put in a significant amount of effort before even beginning the application process.
"Academics are a huge factor but there are all these other criteria," O'Rourke said. "I think the most important thing is doing the research and knowing in advance what you are working towards. I think that goes a long way...A student really needs to be committed to that particular scholarship and fit it well so as to make a convincing argument in the application."
