9 minute read
Crowning Scholars
As they choose Junior-Senior Scholars, alumni meet the new generation and recall their own days at Case.
By Robert L. Smith
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Ayoung man with a mop of reddish-brown hair sat at the head of a conference table, fidgeting slightly. He faced eight men and women—the interview team that would decide whether he received a scholarship to help pay for his junior year.
He had already described his hometown, his career goals and why he chose to attend Case Western Reserve University. Now came the clincher, the question that might settle things.
“Tell us what makes you different from other students,” Joe Fakult ’90 said in a soft, easygoing voice. “What’s unique about you?”
The young man paused, drew a breath and shared a personal odyssey. During sophomore year of high school, an exhausting illness kept him home most of the school year. With hours to kill, he began studying aircraft design. He even dragged himself out of bed long enough to build his first radiocontrolled plane.
Today, he manages the chronic disease well enough to play club soccer while pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering. That high school nightmare launched a dream.
“That was an awful time for me, looking back,” he said. “But I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
The judges stared silently at one another as he left the room, then bent over papers and recorded their scores.
Who deserves help becoming a Case engineer, mathematician or scientist? That’s a question deeply pondered by people who believe it strikes at the core mission of an alumni association. Each year around this time, alumni join faculty and staff of the Case Alumni Association to interview freshmen and sophomores seeking to be crowned Junior-Senior Scholars.
Last March, the selection committee awarded a little more than $500,000—in amounts ranging
from $2,000 to $10,000—to 121 men and women attending the Case School of Engineering or the College of Arts and Sciences.
Soon, a volunteer committee will do it again.
For students, the scholarships offer academic distinction and often sorely needed cash. Full tuition at CWRU exceeds $60,000. Some students said the grants would help them decide if they were able to return for another semester, or graduate without crushing debt.
For alumni, the selection process offers a chance to help the CAA perform a fiduciary responsibility and something more. It’s an opportunity to reconnect with their own college experience and to meet the new generation, in whose anxious faces they often see themselves.
“We all had to pay that tuition bill,” said Fakult, the chair of the Scholarship Committee. “These kids have some of the same ambitions. They’re a pretty select group. You don’t survive here unless you’re talented. What we’re really looking for is leadership.”
A senior engineer for Safran Power in Twinsburg, Fakult is nearing a decade on the committee. It’s a volunteer role that helped earn him a Meritorious Service Award at Homecoming 2018. He takes seriously a process he believes supports the future of the alumni association and the university he loves.
“In a sense, this is step one in recruiting the next generation to our organization,” he said. “We’re trying to identify the students who have that capacity to support our school.”
Working closely with Janna Greer, CAA’s Manager of Donor Relations and Grants, Fakult helps orchestrate a process that demands empathy, curiosity and stamina.
Many are called
During the last week in February or first week in March, students begin reporting to the stately library on the second floor of Tomlinson Hall shortly after noon. They arrive one at a time, 10 minutes apart, for five straight days, until 130 or more have been interviewed.
Alumni volunteers work in rotating shifts. Many pull interview duty for a single afternoon, but even that exposes them to the aspirations of dozens of students.
For Harry Farmer, ’55, MS ’65, it’s a glimpse into a new generation gaining confidence. He marvels at the changes he witnesses in a 10-minute interview.
“They come in shaky, a little scared. By the end they’re outgoing, expressing themselves,” he observed. “It just rejuvenates me. It makes me feel positive about our future leaders.”
To reach the conference table, each student has achieved at least a 3.0 grade point average and been recommended by a faculty member. The selectors are also aware of their financial need, as reported
“I always look for a spark. Is the student taking hold of their own education—and taking advantage of everything the university offers?” – Donald Feke
Janna Greer, Manager of Donor Relations and Grants for the Case Alumni Association, directs the scholarship program and participates in the judging.
to the university, and their involvement in volunteer activities and campus groups.
The interview offers a chance to get to know the students a little better, to judge composure and sincerity, and perhaps discern the achievers from the strivers.
“I always look for a spark,” said scholarship committee member Donald Feke ’76, MS ’77, a professor of chemical engineering and the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education. “Is the student taking hold of their own education—and taking advantage of everything the university offers?”
Associate Professor Sunniva Collins, MS ’91, PhD ’95, teaches mechanical and aerospace engineering and many of the applicants are her students.
“I just like to see what they’re all doing. To see what they’re all jazzed about,” she said.
But she’s also looking for that special “Case quality” that goes beyond academics.
“Are you also well-rounded enough that you’re thinking outside of yourself? I think that’s what really separates the Case graduate—the ability to walk in and take a leadership position and make something happen,” she said.
A young woman took the seat at the head of the table and waited as the judges scanned her application. She wore a conservative suit and a look of expectation. She laughed at a committee member’s observation that she belonged to a dazzling array of student groups. Her favorite? The Global Health Design Collaborative. It took her to Uganda to design a clean water project.
She divulged that she loves engineering research, and is keen on working in Navy labs, but also that she took out a $30,000 loan at 10 percent interest to pay this year’s tuition bill.
Next year, she’s not sure if she can afford to come back. “My parents help but the rest is up to me,” she said.
Tuition was a big concern to the woman who followed her, a third-year student from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Family savings covered the first three years at CWRU, she said. “The last year’s kind of on me.”
An internship in machining at a Willoughby manufacturer helped her to pay the bills, and fired her passion for mechanical engineering, to some dismay back home.
“No one in my family is an engineer,” she explained.
The selectors lob the same general questions at each candidate, but the answers are far from predictable, as they reflect myriad backgrounds and personalities.
Some responses required translation. A petite young woman from suburban Chicago identified herself as a member of the campus Quiddich Club, adding, “I play beater.”
Greer explained to the committee that Quiddich is the marquee sport at Hogwarts, where Harry Potter matriculated, and that Case indeed fields a team.
The eager applicant added that she dances with the Mather Modern Dance Club and thinks wind energy is the future.
Her uncommon quality? “I have this unnatural optimism—and I like to share it!”
Fears, concerns and surprises
Students were all asked to name something about Case they wish they could change, as if with a magic wand. Many of the women cited security concerns, saying they did not always feel safe on and around campus. Young men were more likely to cite a lack of school spirit, which they say is most evident at sporting events.
No one lacked enthusiasm for science and engineering, but many voiced a desire to explore other sides of campus, even the humanities. Asked to name a favorite course, the students often cited SAGES classes like fly fishing, meditation and “Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry.” “Most of the class was engineers,” a young man said.
Standout qualities were as diverse as the students. A young woman taught herself Spanish to enrich her travel
From left: Steve Zinram, Sunniva Collins, MS ’91, PhD ’95, Janna Greer, Tom Conlon, Mark Sherman, MS ’85, Ed Cordiano ’97 and Joe Fakult ’90.
experiences. A young man said he taught himself to play the ukulele, then taught others in his dorm, adding, “I’ve kind of started something.”
Not surprisingly, most were complimentary of the university as they sought to impress its representatives. But many were quite specific about what they liked and what they discovered, often to their surprise. They praised “amazing professors,” research opportunities and the University Circle neighborhood.
“I don’t think I would have found the opportunities that I found at Case anywhere else,” said one young woman, a second-year student in electrical engineering. “The people, the clubs, the access to research. It’s just been amazing.”
The talent and zeal of the students makes it difficult for the selectors, who have a limited pool of money to disperse.
Ed Cordiano ’97 was serving on the scholarship committee for the first time. He was surprised to see so much of the drive that he recalled from his own days at Case, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering.
“It’s a new crop of kids, but the challenges they face are still very similar,” said Cordiano, the owner and president of CMIT Solutions of Cleveland East & Southwest. “They don’t have a lot of money, yet you see the things they do to pay for a university like Case, maybe to pay for one year. You hear that, you remember what it takes.”
Fakult is hoping the alumni association can find a way to boost the scholarships. Grants averaging $4,000 and $5,000 don’t make much of a dent in a tuition bill that runs in the tens of thousands, he noted.
“We’re a 10 percent off coupon,” he said. “We need to make a more meaningful contribution.”
That may be his parting gift. He plans to step down from the committee after this year, though he admits he says that every year. He suspects he will miss the experience. Across eight years, he has interviewed more than 1,400 students and awarded just over $5 million in scholarship monies.
He recommends the job.
“It’s a fun thing to do,” Fakult said. “Not everybody wants to get involved in raising money. But distributing money? It’s a fun thing to do.”
If you would like to join the scholarship committee, or learn more about its work, contact Janna Greer; janna.greer@caselaum.org, 216-368-3647.
