From left to right: Melissa Welshans, assistant director of CFSA; Jolynn Parker, director of CFSA; and Adam Crowley, academic and scholarship advisor
When it comes to applying for nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships, the team at the Center for Fellowship and Scholarship Advising (CFSA) offers a wealth of knowledge and resources for undergraduate and graduate students and recent alumni.
Located on the third floor of Bowne Hall, a team of three people—Jolynn Parker, director of CFSA; Melissa Welshans, assistant director of CFSA; and Adam Crowley, academic and scholarship advisor—guides students through the process of applying to scholarship and fellowship experiences that enhance and complement their studies across a broad range of disciplines and interests.
National opportunities they assist with include the Astronaut Scholarship, Beinecke Scholarship, Boren Awards, Critical Language Scholarship, Fulbright Program opportunities, Gilman Scholarship, Goldwater Scholarship, Marshall Scholarship and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, just to name a few.
CFSA fosters a network of campus connections to build awareness of their office and award opportunities. They also liaise with the national foundations and organizations that offer awards and play a role in administering three high-profile internal scholarship programs specific to the University: the Syracuse University Scholars, Remembrance Scholars and Seinfeld Scholar Awards for Undergraduates.
The center on average helps between 150 and 200 students apply to nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships each year, and the team says there is tremendous value in the application process, regardless of whether an individual is selected for the opportunity.
“One thing we really like to emphasize is that regardless of the outcome, the process of applying to these opportunities is extremely valuable for students. It can help them think through their future professional goals, as well as academic and personal goals,” says Welshans.
“Students often have big ambitions and a focus on what they want to do after graduation—but they don’t always have a practical step-by-step sense of how they’re going to get there,” Parker says. “Applying for national scholarships helps because they have to be able to articulate not just the big, long-term dream but how exactly they’re going to accomplish that dream. And we help them do that.”
One-on-one advising with CFSA helps students describe their past accomplishments and clarify their vision for the future in order to write a compelling personal statement, which is a critical component of many scholarship and fellowship applications. Parker and Welshans both have degrees in English and Crowley practiced law as a litigator (“a very writing-heavy area of the law,” he says) for almost a decade before making a career change to academic advising. Their fluency in the written word and practice crafting academic narratives allows them to add immediate value to student applications, regardless of the discipline of the award.
“Even for fields where we are not specialists, STEM fields, for example, we can still be helpful in the application processes because the personal statements are such a critical piece of writing for these awards,” says Welshans. “It’s a genre of writing that most people do not have expertise in, and we do. We really want to help students in all fields.”
Parker says a big part of her role is developing pipelines, collaborating with faculty and other groups and organizations on campus to connect with students who show national scholarship potential, ideally in their first or second year on campus.
“We are almost recruiters in a way, getting to know as many students as possible and connecting them with opportunities,” she says. “A lot of that comes down to relationship building—becoming familiar with who is in what role on campus and who the best contact is for various organizations and programs.”
To ensure that a range of students from across the University know about scholarship opportunities, the CFSA team reaches out to academic departments and graduate programs in all fields, and often liaises with such organizations as Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE), Multicultural Affairs, the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program, WellsLink Leadership Program and the Posse Foundation. They also engage recent alumni since candidates remain eligible for many national scholarship opportunities even after graduation.
According to Parker, “There are students who show up their first year and say, ‘I want to be a Fulbright applicant because my parents have talked about it all my life and I grew up knowing about it’—but some of our best Fulbright applicants had never heard about the program before we encouraged them to consider it. We want to make sure we’re not only reaching out to the students who already know about these opportunities.”
Each year, the team runs an outreach program called the Invitation to Excellence, where faculty and staff are asked to recommend outstanding students they’ve worked with in the past two semesters.
“We are just three people and this is a very large campus, so we’re always grateful to faculty and staff for taking the time to consider which students are doing interesting things and send them our way,” says Welshans.
“We truly value our partnership with faculty and staff,” Parker adds. “We can help students polish their story about their time at SU—but that story depends on the great work our faculty are doing with students and in support of students’ independent interests and projects.”
Crowley, who splits his time as an advisor between CFSA and the Renée Crown University Honors Program, says working with students on the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship is just one example of how rewarding he finds his work. The scholarship helps fund study abroad opportunities for students who are Pell Grant recipients.
“The Gilman Scholarship really opens up opportunities that students otherwise may not have access to,” Crowley says. “And it’s one of the awards that attracts a lot of younger applicants—first- and second-year students who perhaps haven’t yet given a lot of thought to what their future career or academic goals might be. I think the process of applying for Gilman can be extremely helpful and help them grow in their academic career.”
Welshans says their one-on-one meetings with students emphasize holistic advising. “We are truly in the business of getting to know students and understanding where they are coming from, what their background is, what they are comfortable sharing.”
“We try to really listen to students, drawing out their interests and passions. We work on knowing how to ask the right questions,” Parker says. “Some students may be reluctant to promote themselves and we try to give them the confidence to do that.”
Outside of CFSA, Parker enjoys running, is addicted to The New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle and has a husband who teaches in the English department in the College of Arts and Sciences and a 15-year-old son. Welshans is a hobby manicurist and loves spending time with her family, especially her 4-year-old daughter. Crowley is an avid home chef who collects vinyl records and lives in the University Neighborhood with his wife.
To learn more about CFSA and the myriad opportunities available to Syracuse University students, visit the center’s website: nationalscholarships.syr.edu. Students and alumni can also register with CFSA via this online form to be considered for advisement opportunities related to pursuing national scholarships and fellowships.
