Campaign residen the P -litics - Princeton University

A moment with ...
Deirdre Moloney, on Princeton’s fellowship success
We are trying to get
Princeton students to
think about a broader
range of fellowships.
”
This has been a banner year for Princeton
students seeking postgraduate scholarships
and fellowships, according to Deirdre
Moloney, the director of fellowship advising.
Final results were not known by mid-April,
but fellowship winners included three
seniors and one 2011 graduate who were
named Rhodes scholars (the most since
1990), five Marshall scholars, and five
Gates Cambridge scholars. Moloney, who
began her job in July 2010, discussed the
University’s recent success and her efforts
to increase student interest in these
programs.
To what do you attribute Princeton’s recent success?
It is hard to pinpoint specific reasons for why we are doing
well, but I think that a lot of the things that Princeton students
are involved in make them strong candidates for fellowships
— specifically, their leadership activities, the close
relationships they develop with faculty, their original
research work, and the global perspective many of them
now have.
What efforts have you made to increase interest in these programs?
We have tried to build awareness by improving our electronic
communications, not only through our office’s website,
but through Facebook and other social-media outlets. We also
are trying to reach out earlier, to freshmen and sophomores.
Princeton students usually aren’t shrinking violets. Does your
office have to encourage them to apply?
Students often need to be encouraged to think that they
might be good candidates. Sometimes it’s a faculty member
who first raises it with them. Other times it is someone a student
worked with outside of class — someone in, say, the
Office of Religious Life or Outdoor Action. Many times, students
I meet with say they never thought about applying for
a fellowship. We can point out that they have the profile of a
very strong candidate.
Princeton students earned more Marshall scholarships this year
than any other university and had the second-highest number of
BEVERLY SCHAEFER “
Rhodes scholarships. Will we continue
to do this well?
I would caution you that these
things can be cyclical. While I am
optimistic that we can continue to
do well, we don’t make the final
decisions on who receives these
awards. What we will continue to
do is create a very supportive
climate for students who want to
apply.
Three of this year’s Rhodes scholars are
women. Have you made particular
efforts to encourage more women to
apply for these awards?
I have made sure that women
also feel that they are excellent candidates
for fellowships and scholarships.
It was very helpful that the
report of the Steering Committee on Undergraduate
Women’s Leadership [released in March 2011] specifically
recommended that we increase efforts to encourage women
to apply for these awards. That created a lot of awareness, and
many faculty have let me know about female students who
might be good candidates.
Has competition for these scholarships increased?
Many more universities across the country have recognized
that these programs provide a good experience that they
should open up to their students. In some cases there are
slightly fewer fellowships available than there were a decade
or more ago, but more people are applying for them. So we
are trying to get Princeton students to think about a broader
range of fellowships that might be great opportunities for
them. Luce scholarships [in Asia], for example, are a great
opportunity. There are many new types of Fulbright scholarships
as well. Students who wanted to go to medical school
used to go straight from college; now they are being encouraged
to take a few years off, and a Fulbright could offer them
an excellent experience to do research or clinical work.
What benefits do students get from these programs?
They provide students with an excellent global experience
and enable them to develop their own interests. They enable
them to delve more deeply into something they found interesting
as a junior or senior at Princeton. They also make
them very attractive to graduate schools and employers. π
— Interview conducted and condensed by Mark F. Bernstein ’83
paw.princeton.edu • May 16, 2012 Princeton Alumni Weekly
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