This case study examines how advisors might best prepare their students for post-college experiences in a changing landscape, when factors like the economy or political environment can affect their students’ chosen careers. This issue can be particularly difficult when helping students strategize how they can present themselves authentically while demonstrating that they are the best fit for an opportunity.

Keywords: fellowships, advising, politics, authenticity

Institutional Context

Fitzgerald University is a large, R1 public institution in the Southeast with a heavy STEM emphasis. Fitzgerald University has an Office of Nationally Competitive Awards which prepares students to apply for both federally funded and private fellowships to fund opportunities like STEM research, graduate school, and learning abroad. This office is less than ten years old and has a director and assistant director. Last year they hired a graduate student to help with advising.

Primary Characters

Alina (she/her) is a second-year graduate student completing her assistantship as a fellowship advisor. In this role, Alina works alongside the assistant director to advise students for international awards and opportunities. She taught English abroad through a Fulbright grant to South Korea before attending graduate school.

Theo (they/them) is a senior physics major. They have been heavily involved throughout their undergraduate career with a student affinity organization for LGBTQ+ STEM majors. Additionally, Theo currently serves on a College of Science advisory board to help faculty understand the unique challenges of LGBTQ+ students in the college.

Kena (she/her) is a senior education and women’s leadership double major. Her academic experiences have only fueled her passion for global gender equality. Most of her campus and community involvement has been teaching English to speakers of other languages, as she has seen how English fluency has helped many female refugees achieve economic independence upon resettling in the US.

Case

In her graduate assistantship Alina advises and supports students applying for international fellowship opportunities. As the fall semester begins, the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has been extremely busy with preparing students for the upcoming deadlines of multiple fellowships, one of which is the U.S. Fulbright Program. This fellowship is sponsored by the U.S Department of State, and students can apply for awards to either teach English, complete research, or earn a graduate degree abroad.

The Fulbright Program has a long history built on cultural exchange, bringing the best and brightest abroad to complete research in the United States while sending Americans abroad to teach English or conduct research. Most Fulbright grants are jointly funded by the U.S and the host country. The program is governed by a nonpartisan Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board that establishes policies and procedures.

With the recent national election and changes in leadership, the Department of State deprioritized many initiatives promoting cultural exchange. After a long delay in award announcements, several countries were notified that the U.S. government would not be funding proposals that did not align with executive orders. There is no precedent for the executive branch denying students after they had been selected. 11 out of 12 members of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board resigned over this political interference.

When the Fulbright cycle opened in the spring, Fitzgerald University’s Office of Nationally Competitive Awards began recruiting students to apply. Due to the rigor of the application, students are expected to work with the Office throughout the summer.

Theo’s Graduate Application

Theo met with the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards shortly after the cycle opened to apply for a Fulbright grant to fund a graduate degree in Medical Physics. They found a program at a university in Finland that offers a unique degree; the coursework focuses on applying physics to medical technology, whereas most physics programs in the U.S. and abroad are more theoretical. Theo believes this degree program will be the best fit for their career.

Part of the Fulbright application requires applicants to share feasible strategies for engaging with their host community to build meaningful relationships. This section of the application justifies how grantees will fulfill the State Department’s public diplomacy arm. In this section of their application, Theo wrote about how their involvement in the LGBTQ+ affinity organization and on the advisory board helped them build meaningful relationships during their undergraduate career. They hope to join the LGBTQ+ student organization at the Finnish university to connect with queer students within their host community.

In the final week of the application, the assistant director advised Theo that they should find a different opportunity for host country engagement that is not connected to their LGBTQ+ identity. There are rumors that federal agencies are going to put in searches for key words related to topics that the current administration does not agree with and disqualify Fulbright applications that contain these words. Though these are rumors, the assistant director nudged Theo towards deleting this section. Theo booked a last-minute advising appointment with Alina, sharing the advice from the assistant director. They want Alina’s opinion on if they should change this proposed involvement; and if so, how they should change it.

Kena’s English Teaching Application

Kena is applying for a Fulbright English Teaching grant in Jordan. She chose this country as Jordan requires its Fulbrighters not only to teach English in the classroom but also complete a supplemental project. Many current Fulbrighters in Jordan volunteer with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to teach English to refugees. Kena is extremely passionate about helping refugee women learn English as a tool to gain financial security for their families. Her justification in her application for ‘why Jordan?’ included the supplemental work she hopes to do.

Typically, her career ambitions would make her a strong Fulbright candidate. However, the assistant director advised Kena to remove any mention of the word ‘refugees’, as that might be a word screened for in applications. Kena sent an email to Alina about this feedback from the assistant director, as she felt that her application was lackluster and incomplete without explaining her passion for English language learning as a tool for global gender equality. Since the Jordan grant would allow her to teach to refugees, she felt that removing this reasoning would not explain why she chose Jordan’s program over another country.

The Fulbright Program releases a list after each cycle of “Top Producing Institutions” broken down by Carnegie designation. For an R1 institution, Fitzgerald University needs to have at least 10 students win the fellowship to become a Top Producer. The director of the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has expressed that Fitzgerald University’s Board of Regents would like to earn the Top Producing Institution designation. If these students’ applications are thrown out or are otherwise not selected, this would hurt the office’s ability to receive this recognition.

Discussion questions

1. How should Alina advise Theo? How should Alina advise Kena? Is there a difference in how Alina should approach advising these students? Why?
2. To what extent should Alina allow these rumors of federal interference to affect her advising? How might her advising change if these rumors were substantiated?
3. How should Alina address students asking for a different opinion on their applications with her supervisor?

Author bio

Elise Blackburn (she/they) is a second-year student in Clemson University’s Master of Education in Student Affairs program and works as a graduate assistant for the Office of Major Fellowships. Elise studied abroad in Seville, Spain as an undergraduate and won a Fulbright fellowship to teach English at a university in Madrid. She is passionate about helping students tell their story and access funding for transformative opportunities like study abroad.