The case of the “Consensus of the Committee” and the “You wouldn’t have won anyway” attitude

By: Donato Latrofa
Contributing Writer

There comes a time in every person’s life in which he realizes that something he believed in was a false assumption, and he has to look reality, as ugly as it may be, in the face. I had just such a running revelation over the past 3 weeks.

Some of you know that I am planning to go to law school in the fall. Some of you are also planning on going on in your own graduate studies, while others are looking to go into the work force. This column really only applies to students who are continuing their formal education, though all students, younger and graduating alike, should take notice.

Continuing education can be a pricey plan. Some graduate schools are generous and offer complete tuition coverage, with small additional graduate salary stipends to their graduate schools, while schools on the other end of the spectrum demand students pay for their entire graduate schooling. To remedy this expensive endeavor, some scholarship foundations offer scholarships to applicants who meet or exceed certain subjective and objective criteria. One such foundation is the Jack Kent Cook (JKC) Scholarship Foundation, based in Iowa City. The thing about the JKC scholarship is that it is not like a typical private scholarship some students are used to—one submits an application, personal statement, resume, and letters of recommendation directly to the scholarship foundation by a certain deadline and awaits word. No; the JKC requires that students submit applications to a “faculty representative” for “review” before the representative picks one or two students the college would endorse for the contest. Why they do this is anyone’s guess, but it’s the protocol.

In searching for ways to finance my upcoming legal education, I stumbled across the JKC scholarship on another school’s website and decided to forge ahead, in line with protocol. I found the scholarship, on my own, around Feb. 20. The scholarship foundation suggested that “faculty representatives” post information regarding the scholarship in November, and publicize explicit deadlines for submission to the “faculty representative.” I guess I should have taken the lack of publicity as a cue that our faculty representative did not think any of the student body was qualified for the scholarship.

Before I go forward with my narrative, I would like to explain a little more about the JKC scholarship, and why I’m writing this particular column. The scholarship offered by the foundation is very lucrative indeed. Winners of the scholarship are guaranteed up to $50,000 to put toward education for up to six years. This was no puny $500 dollar, local Rotary Club scholarship contest. As a result, many students of the world’s premier institutions apply for this scholarship. Some individuals are very special and intriguing; the website lists one woman who has spent her summers doing missionary work in South America. However, at the same time, there are some applicants who are just like you and I: they are graduating college students with big dreams and a proven track record of executing their desires and succeeding.

In sizing up my accomplishments, desires and track record with previous winners, I felt that I had a legitimate chance at being competitive, let alone winning. I contacted the faculty representative and began working on the lengthy application as soon as possible. I contacted some faculty and staff members and asked them to write letters of recommendation on my behalf. They gladly agreed, despite having large workloads of their own. I submitted all of the requisite materials well before the faculty representative said he wanted them—all I had to do was await word from a “special committee,” who would decide whether they would give me their seal of approval. Ok, fair enough; I figured, “if I’m the only one applying for the scholarship and I meet the explicit criteria listed on the Foundation’s website, I should have this approval in the bag.” Wrong! I received e-mails March 8 stating:

“The scholarship committee decided not to forward your application to the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. The Foundation uses six criteria to select recipients -- the consensus of the committee was that the public service item would be a significant problem with your application. The committee believes your application would not effectively compete with applications from other colleges and universities.”

And:

“The committee is not endorsing any applications for the JKC scholarship this year.”

(These quotes are directly from the e-mails I received).

This is rather interesting for a few reasons. 1) While the Foundation does use 6 different criteria, the public service component is lumped together with leadership and is not a stand-alone item at all, meaning that the “consensus of the committee” was completely uninformed and misguided, given my extensive leadership credentials; 2) I am the lone applicant and easily exceeded the requirements for application, yet my application was not allowed to be processed not on any objective criteria, but on some “consensus” of some “committee” that I was never notified existed, nor the JKC Foundation listed as a requirement. 3) The Scholarship was not publicly advertised, despite the desire of the Foundation to have it done so.

Now, if I was rejected on some objective grounds, or because the school had a better candidate they wanted to support for this scholarship, I wouldn’t share this tale with you; however, the lack of solicitation of this scholarship, as well as the arbitrary rejection of my lone application has caused me to become even more dissatisfied and embittered with some of the faculty and staff of MC. My rejection and the lack of publicity for the scholarship led me to reasonably infer that many in the staff and faculty of this college have a low opinion of the student body (talk about a tough realization!)—so low that they don’t think even the best of us, who have striven daily to live up to the liberal arts ideal, is competitive nationwide. No wonder the school is having trouble retaining students! It’s hard to make someone stay when you don’t care about them, and you tell them the four-year investment in Monmouth will not make them even competitive when they graduate!

Furthermore, some of my entreaties to some of the senior staff of the College, President Ditzler included, have yet to be returned or even addressed—thus I send this to the one source the students should be able to trust. I don’t expect anyone to take pity on me, nor do I expect students to pick up a flag and rally on my behalf—I write this as someone who has come to a bitter realization that Monmouth College is not the same place I believed it was when I matriculated in fall 2003. I write this as someone who has come to the bitter realization that perhaps a college education is the same anywhere, and the premium price we students pay to attend Monmouth is a rip-off and a joke. I write this as a warning to all students who plan on graduating from MC in the coming years—realize that some of your professors don’t believe in you and don’t think all the hard work (academic and otherwise) you put in is worth anything. I write this hoping some changes will be made so all students don’t have to suffer under the mindset of a faculty and staff that believes, “Why even try? You wouldn’t have won anyway.”