Haley Hoog is both a former finalist and a U of A student, and she says the Harry S Truman Foundation has a specific mission.
“The Harry Truman Foundation runs a scholarship program each year that they use to identify and recognize students who have shown commitment to public service, both in their experiences up to their junior year of college and then in their future career goals,” Hoog said, “and I think that being a Truman Scholar just means that you have demonstrated leadership qualities and other good qualities that a lot of successful public servants demonstrate. And also we're able to articulate that well in the context of what you hope to do in the future. And who you hope to serve?”
Coleman Warren is a Truman scholar and former Razorback studying in Oxford now. He began his public service career after finding a niche in Arkansas's child hunger issue. However, his path was not always clear.
“I mean, you're a junior in college and like you don't know what next steps look like,” Warren said. “I mean, it's hard to know next steps look like and I think one of those helpful things you can do is just like pick a direction and see how it feels. I think that's what the Truman process and a lot of these nationally competitive awards, they make you do that, they make you think about who I might be in five years. I mean, that's a specific Truman question like where will you be in your career in five years, right? And then, where to yourself in your career? I don't know the exact number, but you know where do you see yourself going? After that, you know your long-term ambitions.”
“You have got to think strategically about, ok, who am I today,” Warren said. “What do I care about? And then now where does that take me for Graduate School? And then where does that lead in five years where I'm like starting my career? And then where does that ultimately lead me and the impact that I want to make on the communities that I care about? I really recommend it to anyone to apply. It's a ton of work and a lot of that work is just so introspective, it can be really challenging.”
Haley says the application process is intricate, but advisors made the journey easier.
“The application consists of kind of your standard like fill in your involvement, number of hours per week per week, like brief description of what it was that you did,” Hoog said, “but then the short answer essay questions are pretty intense. They really need you to dig deep about the work that you've done previously and also how that work will relate to your future, which was it was a really cool process to get to try to make those connections and then.”
“I guess largest part, at least the most time consuming part for me was the policy proposal,” Hoog said, “so you define a problem and describe the solution and then I think the third part is something to do with you also going through what potential like issues or roadblocks you could see in implementing that policy - and so that was pretty far out of my wheelhouse. And so I got to work with Dr. Suzanne McCray a lot on my policy as well as Dr. Marty Matlock from the College of Engineering and it was just it was a really it was a cool experience. It was definitely something I had never done.”
A large part of becoming a Truman scholar is building relationships with those who understand the program, Coleman tells us.
“If I hadn't applied for the Truman I probably wouldn't have engaged with my mentors and with, like, friends, mentors, advisors in the way that I did with Truman, right,” Warren said, “because you're really thinking critically about who do I want to be and how do I get there. And you're fielding advice from a lot of people that actually know what they're talking about and so that's certainly shaped, you know, the decision to maybe I don't want to go to law school. Maybe what I want is to really understand policy and policy making and its impacts. And so that's where I started studying for a policy degree, like a masters in public policy. And so that's what I you know, that's what I listed in my Truman application and then also with Rhodes right, it was also it ended up being like the program at Oxford that was most exciting to me. It was policy related, right?”
“But yeah, it completely shaped how I thought about my future and who I wanted to be,” Warren said, “and then, of course, winning the award, the scholarship, completely opens up - like changes all your opportunities. I think that there's something about like the personal confidence that it gives you, but also the network that you now have available to you, the stamp of approval that you have and people really trust the Truman Foundation. The scholarship stands for people that are truly committed to public service and yea it is a life changer, for sure. And the money helps a ton, can't forget about that.”
A finalist from the University of Arkansas is Amelia Southern Uribe, she said the process was challenging but efficient for personal growth.
“The application process is strategically proposed for different parts of the application, and so you're writing a lot and you can’t be general,” Southern Uribe said, “you have to consider what you've done, what you want to do, and not just how it affects your community, but how can we make that reality actually manifest into action and equitable action with the application process.”
“It definitely helps you figure out what I want to do within the five-to-10-year range because I was asked hard questions,” Southern Uribe said, “like how were going how you visualize yourself making a legacy and so the process not only helps to line out law and work that you want to do, but the way that you can do it, it gives you those tools to really self actualize and reflect on what you've done in the ways that I haven't had the opportunity to do before. The application is so different, each question is so different that if you really do this you can make a difference, but, one point I mean how you can communicate that to different types of people.”
Now planning to attend Yale Medicine, Haley says she might not have felt comfortable changing her graduate path from what she outlined in her application had she been a scholar.
“I think one of the like big selling points for me applying was that someone had told me that once you apply for Truman, you basically have an entire graduate school application in front of you and that's like absolutely true,” Hoog said. “I applied to medical school this past year and so many of my essays, especially about like what I hope to do in my career and you know what unique perspectives I could bring to an incoming medical school class were pulled basically straight from my Truman application.”
Truman scholars received substantial funding for Graduate School, that is only part of the benefits.
“As a scholar, it would cost about $30,000 or less as I move forward,” Hoog said, “which would be nice, but I mean, I think wasn't anything – and also I mean I say this is someone who didn't receive the award - but the benefit of it to me was actually the writing process and the interview process too, I mean the interview itself is, well at least mine was brutal, I mean they're tough. And it's a room full of five incredibly successful people and you're like I'm 20 years old and no nothing, but I think that it going through writing and kind of trying to having to articulate what I want to do in the future really helped me figure out what it actually is that I want to do.”
“But kind of on the opposite side, I think a little bit, if I had been awarded this scholarship, I would have felt a little bit more confined to the graduate program I wrote about,” Hoog said, “and I ended up - I originally wrote about an MD PhD program and I wrote about Johns Hopkins - and that is not where I'll be next year I decided not to do an MD PhD program and just do MD worldwide. I might not have like let myself think a little bit more about what I wanted, but who's to say?”
Amelia said that they value the experience just as much as actually winning.
“Even if I don't get the scholarship, I know that it was always something that was beneficial,” Southern Uribe said, “and just being authentic to you, standing up for yourself in a room of very powerful people, that is going to take me so much more water than I ever could imagine.”
“I'm standing in front of county judges public advisors, and just great governmental officials,” Southern Uribe said, “and I articulated myself and I defended myself and leaving this scholar than not I know that I can do that effectively if they put me in a room with the mayor or put me in a room with the President, I'm going to speak my truth, you know, because Truman taught me that and regardless of what happens, I learned how to advocate for myself better, articulate myself better.”
Regardless of being the finalist or scholar, many have reaped the benefits of such an introspective scholarship.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline by reporters. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of KUAF programming is the audio record.
