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Home > News & Events > CLA Today Archive > Summer 2002 : Pumping Potential with Scholarships

Pumping potential with scholarships

by Judy Woodward

CLA scholarship recipients talk about their academic careers, their goals, and the scholarships that have brought them to CLA, kept them here, and helped them succeed.

They say they've been lucky.

David Simon says so about the path that led to his internship at the British House of Commons.

Julia Curran says so about discovering her passion for geography when she took a course in the field purely "for interest.”

Kate Burek says her whole University career has been a "happy accident,” following what she calls a "miserable" high school career.

And Kristopher Lencowski says it's "dumb luck" that he stumbled on the theatre major he loves.

Of course you don't have to look far to see that what these students call luck is more accurately a combination of intelligence, curiosity, drive, and a keen ability to take advantage of an opportunity.

They are among CLA's current crop of scholarship winners, arguably among the best in the college's history. In the past 28 years, 16 CLA students have received the nationally competitive Harry S. Truman Scholarship. Five of those 16—nearly a third—have been students within the past four years.

The University's investment in scholarships in recent years has made it possible to recruit students like Melissa Kayongo. Now a senior and a nominee for the Rhodes scholarship, Kayongo was accepted by the likes of Duke, Northwestern, and New York University. She chose Minnesota in part because she received a U2000 scholarship, with a $5,000-a-year tuition grant.

There are many others as well—and we talked to just a few of them to see what makes them so special.

National recognition

In the hierarchy of prestigious, nationally competitive scholarships, three represent the gold standard: the Rhodes, the Marshall, and the Truman. David Simon, a 21-year-old senior, is one of the nation's 77 Truman winners, selected for their potential to excel in public service. And he was a nominee for the other two awards.

A political science major on the summa cum laude track, Simon, a Moorhead native, came to the University fall 1999 and enrolled in a freshman seminar on Constitutional law taught by President Mark Yudof and General Counsel Mark Rotenberg. Never one to let an opportunity slip away, Simon asked his instructors if they knew the University had no debate club.

“It was just chance,” says Simon, who had been an active high school debater. "We were walking out of class and I just asked. How else would I have gotten an opportunity to lobby Mark Yudof for this?”

That timely conversation turned into a proposal that turned into seed money that turned into the U's Parliamentary Debate Society, which has since grown from 4 to 80 members and won tournaments all over the world.

Simon's stint at the British House of Commons was another stroke of luck. On the advice of a high school teacher who had taught at Oxford, he did some research and emailed a member of Parliament to inquire about internship possibilities. Next stop: London.

The following summer found Simon interning at the Council on Foreign Relations, and then with the New York Times bureau in Moscow, where he also started a debate program—and debated in Russian.

Described by honors program director Richard McCormick as "an idealistic young man of many talents,” Simon has turned his idealism to good works: he has volunteered at Hennepin County Medical Center and interned with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, and says he feels called to public service. Indeed, as one stroked with "luck,” he considers service an obligation.

Raymond Duvall, a political science professor whom Simon calls "the coolest guy around,” has taught Simon in two classes. Duvall describes Simon as "a 'go-getter,' perhaps more pronouncedly so than any undergraduate student that I can recall having worked with.”

Simon insists, though, that while he may be going places—and hopes to play a role in furthering global economic development, democratization, arms control, and human rights—his life isn't just about goals.

“My experience, especially in Russia, made it clear that my path is following my passions,” he says. "I want to be a person instead of a career. I've stopped approaching things in terms of the next rung of a ladder. I don't like competing; I like practice. The process is important. I’m not in a rush.”

Rewarding achievement, making CLA competitive

David Simon has also twice won the Selmer Birkelo scholarship, a competitive, CLA-level version of the national scholarships, which rewards the most talented and highest-achieving CLA students.

Among this year's 13 other Birkelo winners is an accomplished, soft-spoken junior, Julia Kumba YingHua Curran, who also has received the Ruby Hackett-Jones Scholarship.

Curran not only was homeschooled for much of her K-12 education, but also was the first homeschooled student approved to take University courses during high school through the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options program.

Taught by her sociology-professor mother, Curran—a Denver native—spent part of her childhood in Bemidji before her family moved to Minneapolis. She came to the U in part, she says, because the admissions people here were flexible and were willing to talk with her about her homeschooling. Other schools were not so accommodating.

Curran says that when she signed up for a geography class her first year she had no particular interest in the subject. But, as luck would have it, "Boom! It happened!" Reflecting on her good fortune, she says, "It amazed me to find an area [biogeograpy] that so completely addressed my concerns-environmental issues, social justice, and global and local interactions.”

As for her professors—"I took to them,” she says matter-of-factly, then adds, in a burst of exuberance, "By the way, have I told you they're wonderful?”

It seems the feeling is mutual. Geography professor John Adams calls Curran "one of the best arguments I know of for homeschooling bright kids with endless curiosity. She's curious about everything.”

He notes that when the department hosts visiting speakers, "We can always count on Julia to approach them with her own questions and observations. It doesn't matter if the topic is Karst terrain, historic preservation, or Twin Cities railroad development.

“Sometimes,” he adds, "she brings along her precocious little brother, who has his own questions. I wonder what they talk about over the dinner table.”

And an interesting dinner table it is. With three younger brothers, Curran relishes her unusual mix of Irish, Polish, and Chinese ancestry. Paying a kind of homage to a third of that heritage, she is minoring in Chinese—"for fun.”

In Curran's world, just about anything new is an opportunity for learning. What especially appeals to Curran about the U's geography department is its broad sweep: "They look at the whole world, to see patterns and connections,” she says. Yet she intends to continue exploring other subjects as well, creative writing among them (two of her poems will be published this fall in Wayfarer, a campus literary journal). And this summer, she is teaching English in Italy.

How will she make her mark on the world? "Take only memories, leave only footprints,” she says, "and make the world a better place for my having been part of it.”

The Sullivan: study abroad

Melissa Kayongo, a Kenya native who came to the United States at age 5, has the Birkelo under her belt, too—as well as the U2000 Scholarship she garnered her first year.

And like Curran, she wants to leave some indelible footprints in the world.

Now, though, on an April morning just before finals, Kayongo is thinking about the Rhodes. She's been nominated, and has just gone through the grueling initial interviews that are part of the selection process.

She's also thinking about her upcoming trip to Spain, where she'll spend the next academic year doing research on Spanish immigration policy. That trip is happening with the help of the Katherine E. Sullivan scholarship, sponsored by the Office of International Programs.

A political science major with a particular interest in immigration law, Kayongo is yet another student who says she found her life's calling by lucky coincidence. She had always thought she would be a doctor, she says, following in her father's footsteps. But fate intervened.

“I took a political science class my first semester and absolutely loved it,” she says. "The more classes I took, the more I realized this is what I wanted.”

The decision didn't come easily. Even at the beginning of this academic year, Kayongo still considered herself pre-med. "It was stressful, not knowing,” she says. But she had to concede that, although she herself wasn't sure, "a lot of other people knew all along what my interest was.”

Political science professor August Nimtz is one of those people. He saw Kayongo's passion for the subject as well as her sharp analytical skills. Looking back, he says, "She produced what I would consider one of the five best [undergraduate] papers I have received in three decades of teaching.”

But it's not just academics that has fueled Kayongo. Volunteering as a "homework helper" at the Minneapolis public library, Kayongo tutored children of immigrant families. The experience touched her profoundly.

“I realized I had a bond to share with those kids,” she remembers. "There are so many things that could make them want to give up. They are so strong and you realize how strong the human spirit is in general.

“I wish every student who's serious about education could have the same opportunities I've had,” she says.

Running the scholarship gauntlet

When it comes to sheer tenacity in seeking scholarships, junior honors student Kelsey Anderson may have few equals.

“I started applying for scholarships at age 13,” says the savvy journalism major from Minnetonka. "I didn't win one then, but it got me familiar with the process." A few applications later, Anderson's persistence and pluck paid off.

Anderson is the winner of the Morton and Artice Silverman scholarship, which helped her through her sophomore year. She also has won the Jay and Rose Phillips Scholarship, a Presidential Scholarship, "and a few more, too,” she adds with a laugh.

“The U has been an absolutely good experience,” Anderson says. "As a scholarship recipient, I have an added sense of responsibility and a stronger drive to succeed, because other people believe in me and I have their support. Their sponsorship of my education is making this possible.”

Anderson, who once thought she'd like to be a pilot, isn't limiting her college career to academics. She has just completed an exhausting stint on the executive committee for Spring Jam, a weeklong series of U events for which she helped coordinate a residence hall competition. But for the budding journalist, writing is never far from her mind.

“I’m holding up all right,” she laughs. "For stress relief I keep a journal-every night before I go to bed.”

Opening doors, changing lives

Kate Burek's story is not that of the high-achieving high school student who goes on to greater glory in college. Hers is more of a Cinderella tale—or a conversion experience.

She was, she says, "an absolutely miserable" student in her Coon Rapids high school—"I was always bright,” she says, "but I was unmotivated. I didn't like school.”

And so, with relatively little to recommend her for college, Burek spent her first post-high-school year in a factory, working as an eyeglass lens inspector. "It became clear to me that—although this was okay for some and I respect that—I didn't want to squander my potential,” she says.

Unlike many scholarship prospects, Burek didn't have an array of college choices in front of her. No one was clamoring for her attention. So when she was admitted to the U through the College of Continuing Education (then University College), she was delighted.

Over the next four years, Burek blossomed, finding her passion in the study of history and distinguishing herself academically. As both reward and incentive, she was selected as one of three recipients of the 2001-02 Hedley Donovan Scholarship, a $7,000 package awarded to outstanding history students for study abroad.

The scholarship, named for 1934 U graduate and history major Hedley Donovan (editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., and later adviser to President Jimmy Carter), allowed Burek to follow her interest in British history to Ireland, where she researched women in the Irish labor movement of the 1910s. In May, she graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history. And she's had a change of heart: She loves school.

“The U has been really good for me,” says Burek. "In a way, it was the best choice by accident. I feel very lucky, and really grateful for the opportunities the University has given me.”

A value beyond money

Before he graduated in May, you could usually find actor-director-playwright Kris Lencowski somewhere in Rarig Hall.

Sometimes he'd be in the tissue-box-sized basement office with the red, yellow, and orange circus tent on the door where he worked as a peer adviser for the theatre department.

Sometimes he'd be building sets or rehearsing or acting in a play—or maybe dreaming about the Guthrie career he might have one day.

A Forest Lake, Minn., native, Lencowski received one of two Dave Moore scholarships awarded each year in honor of the late, revered Twin Cities newscaster—one in theatre and one in journalism.

“I remember listening to him on Sunday morning, sitting with my dad in the living room,” Lencowski says of Moore. "It means a lot to me to get a scholarship in honor of someone I respect so much. It's a value beyond money.”

There was a time when Lencowski thought he would be a biology major. Then he auditioned for and got a role in "Turandot" on Rarig's Main Stage. He was hooked. And he has never regretted his change of heart—although, he admits, he might have an easier time defending a biology major at family gatherings.

“I’m always asked what I’m going to do,” laughs Lencowski, who has both written and directed plays, "and I say I don't know. But I’m not worried. I've worked hard to make my way, and that will hold me in good stead.”

Sherry Wagner, managing director of University Theatre, says Lencowski is "one of those students you don't want to let graduate, he brings so much spirit and energy to the department." But graduate he will—and he'll turn that energy toward pursuing a life in the theatre.

Conceding the relative uncertainty of an actor's life and livelihood, Lencowski says, "I've made things work here at the U, and that will translate into the outside world. I've got very broad experience, and if I need to supplement my income, I can always build scenery. I don't think I'll be waiting tables!”

For last year's other Dave Moore scholarship winner, waiting tables is part of the weekly routine—for now. Grant Kelly, a 21-year-old junior from Winona, Minn., deftly brushes crumbs off a table before he sits down for an interview.

“I’m a server at Grandma's [a West Bank restaurant],” he laughs. "It's a habit.”

Kelly comes from one of those maroon-and-gold-blooded families: his parents, stepbrother, and older sister are all graduates of the University.

Like other scholarship winners, he has a penchant for making things happen. Take his internship at WCCO-TV.

“After my sophomore year, I thought it would make sense to get an internship,” says Kelly. "So I called WCCO and then sent over a résumé. Pretty soon I called back to check on the status. I got the internship, they told me, because I was the first one to call back.”

His current internship at the local affiliate of Fox News is "awesome,” Kelly says unabashedly. Because it's a fairly small operation, Kelly gets to try his hand at a broader range of things—staffing the assignment desk, writing small press releases, and making beat calls "if they let me.”

So what does a fulltime student with a part-time job who also interns 15 hours a week do in his "spare time"? Volunteer, of course. Recently, Kelly has been putting in a few extra hours every week helping to plan next fall's New Student Weekend. That event will help some 1,000 or more U students get oriented to their college careers through a weekend-long program of guest speakers and activities.

As someone for whom the University has opened so many doors, Kelly believes it's important to pass the key to others.

As for his journalism career, with a scholarship and two internships under his belt Kelly has good reason to be optimistic. After all, he's been lucky. Still, he is philosophical: "I know career success won't happen overnight,” he says. "But I don't care how hard or how impossible it seems, I’m going to get there.”

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As you know, if you or family members are college bound, financial planning is essential. Prospective students and their families often have questions about the financial aid process.

The U's Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid (OSFA) is happy to answer questions and offer assistance.

Contact OSFA at: osfa@umn.edu or 612-624-1665; onestop.umn.edu.