Office gives students opportunities

by Kara McDonald
For The Post

Several Ohio University students have won prestigious awards with assistance from a recently created university office dedicated to helping students apply for national scholarships.

"It was Provost (Sharon) Brehm's vision," said Ann Brown, director of the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, which opened in Fall Quarter 1999. "We got an internal grant of $25,000 from the OU Foundation, and it has really become an all-campus enterprise."

OU sophomore Nancy Judd received the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship this year. Judd said she learned about the Goldwater award from a letter from ONCA; ONCA office members helped her fill out the application.

The Goldwater Scholarship, which only has been awarded to three other OU students in the past, is given for math and science research. Judd said she conducted her research last summer at the Cleveland Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital.

"We studied alveolar macrophase, which is the lung's primary defense against pathogens, and its effects in adults and children," Judd said. She is one of 300 undergraduate Goldwater award recipients nationwide.

OU senior Margaux Cowden, an English major in the Honors Tutorial College, received the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in humanistic studies, according to an OU press release.

This award is given to 85 students nationwide and will cover Cowden's graduate school tuition and fees, as well as a $17,500 stipend, Brown said. Only one other OU student ever has received the Mellon award.

"It's great, in terms of recognition - for her, for the program, for the school," Brown said. "When people see that a student has the Mellon or a national award like it, the world is their oyster."

Cowden could not be reached for comment.

Brown said as director, her job is to gather and distribute award information, recruit students to apply and then guide them through the application process. More than 60 faculty mentors assist her in mentoring and writing letters of recommendation.

"Filling out an application for one of these awards can be a very time-consuming process for a student," she said. "We just try to help them get through the maze."

Brown stressed even though these awards are nationally competitive, OU students can win them.

"Our students are great - I want to dispel the myth that any OU student can't win these awards," she said. "Students find out about themselves and have the chance to be mentored by incredible faculty members."