NF-POGO Centre of Excellence Year 2 Report

To facilitate the review process, BIOS created a number of files/documents. The first documentwas an Excel spreadsheet that included basic student information (e.g., name, nationality, gender,educational background, etc). From the Excel spreadsheet, a Word document was created thatcontained much of the same information present in the Excel spreadsheet, but in an abbreviatedformat. This Word document was divided into nine sub-documents based on the geographicaldistribution of the applicants (e.g., Asia and Africa were each divided into three subregions for atotal of 6 files; Brazil had many applicants and was its own 'subregion'; South America was asubregion containing Mexico and Cuba; Europe was the ninth regional division). Roughlyspeaking, there were approximately 11 - 12 students in each geographical region.BIOS faculty reviewed the files, but it is important to first describe the qualities andqualifications we deemed most important in terms of student selection:a) student's academic background, both in general scope and in terms of grades/marksb) student's current position (whether the student had a position, either academic orprofessional, that would allow them to make a contribution once they returned to theirhome country following the course).c) letters of recommendationd) student's statement of career goalse) the potential of the student to do work in his/her home country when he returned basedon each individual country's commitment, both financially and politically, to the study ofthe global oceanf) assurances that each student would carry on the traditions and diligence of the NipponFoundationg) goodness of fit with BIOS faculty research programsh) regional balancei) male/female ratio of approximately 50:50As the first stage of review, individual BIOS faculty members reviewed each applicant from agiven geographic region (i.e., each BIOS faculty reviewed approximately 11 - 12 applications,for instance, all students from Brazil). Faculty provided written reports of each student'sstrengths as well as weaknesses (if any). Each student received a score based on his/hersuitability and qualifications to participate in the NF-POGO Cof E.As a second stage of review, the CofE Director (Dr. Plumley) reviewed the applications of all104 students. In many/most cases, he concurred with the faculty evaluation/score. When he didnot, he contacted the faculty member for discussion. The CofE Director then provided hiswritten comments and his score for all 104 students.Based on written comments and scores, a number of students were eliminated from furtherconsideration, as they were deemed either unqualified or less qualified than the remainingstudents. A list of students who passed this initial screen was composed and provided to BIOSfaculty, along with the written comments of other faculty and the Director. Faculty reviewed allapplications that remained active and provided written input and scores for each student. The listwas narrowed and the faculty review process was repeated several times, creating a series of lists(e.g., First Cut Applicants, Second Cut Applicants, Third Cut Applicants, Final Cut Applicants).All of the above files (i.e., lists, Excel spreadsheets, and Word documents) were passed to thePOGO Selection Committee for review (note – we did not include telephone interviews for year2 students; see Section 4.2 for additional comments about telephone interviews). There was4