SU students win prestigious scholarships

SU students win prestigious scholarshipsMay 02, 2002Cynthia J. Moritzcjmoritz@syr.edu

It has been a good year for SU’s student scholars. In addition to the Rhodes Scholarship won by Grace Yu, SU’s students have won a Truman Scholarship and two Fulbright Fellowships. An SU graduate was a finalist in the competition for a Luce Scholarship.

Jana Chandler, a junior policy studies major with a minor in African American studies, won a $30,000 Truman Scholarship. Of that, $3,000 will help to pay for her senior year at SU. The other $27,000 will go toward graduate study. Chandler plans to attend law school, and hopes to practice civil rights law.

Chandler was one of 77 Truman Scholars selected this spring. The Truman Scholarship Foundation was established by Congress in 1975 as a memorial to President Harry S. Truman. In addition to the scholarship money, Truman Scholars receive priority admission and supplemental financial aid at some premier graduate institutions, leadership training, career and graduate school counseling, and special internship opportunities within the federal government. Recipients must be US citizens, have outstanding leadership potential and communication skills, be in the top quarter of their class and be committed to careers in government or the not-for-profit sector.

Chandler served a year in SU’s Student Government Association. This year she was vice president of SU’s chapter of the NAACP, and will be president next year. She was a Gates Millennium Scholar in the program’s inaugural year, 2000-2001. This spring, she is spending the semester in Namibia.

According to William D. Coplin, professor and director of the Public Affairs Program in the Maxwell School, Chandler did a statistical study for the Syracuse Housing Authority under his direction that has been used for evaluation and funding by the organization.

“Although Jana is quiet in her demeanor, she has a tenacity and commitment to helping disadvantaged, particularly African American, youth that is impressive,” Coplin says. “Rather than being ideological and emotional in her commitment to the cause, she is pragmatic, presistent, dedicated and tough.”

Meghan Sherman, a 2000 magna cum laude graduate in political science and international relations who works for American for Gun Safety in Washington, D.C., was a finalist for a Luce Scholarship this year. The Luce Scholars Program provides stipends and internships for 18 young Americans to live and work in Asia each year. The program’s purpose is to increase awareness of Asia among future leaders in American society. Those who already have significant experience in Asia or Asian studies are not eligible.

Though Sherman did not win a Luce Scholarship this time around, she can apply again. Her advisor, Rogan Kersh, assistant professor of political science in the Maxwell School, thinks her chances are good of winning the scholarship the next time around.

“Meghan Sherman is an ideal Luce candidate,” he says, “outgoing, adaptable, whip-smart and very intellectually curious, and already launched on a highly promising career in public service.”

Sally Steindorf, a graduate student in anthropology, was awarded a Fulbright to study in India. “I’ll be studying how women in rural north India are affected by satellite television,” she says. “That is, what kinds of ideas women are accepting and rejecting from television and the reasons for this.”

Geography graduate student Richard Van Deusen has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study the geography and politics of urban space design in Paris next year.

The Fulbright Program was established in 1946, at the end of World War II, to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries, through the exchange of persons, knowledge and skills. Its primary source of funding is an annual appropriation made by the United States Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions also contribute financial support through direct cost-sharing, as well as through tuition waivers, university housing and other benefits.