During the week of July 12, I had the pleasure of working with other members of the BSCLA Scholarship committee in interviewing candidates for our annual scholarship awards.  It was a difficult, exceptionally rewarding experience that I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

The committee is essentially divided into two parts; those who gather the information and those who conduct the interviews.  The gathering of information (and working with the students to arrange the interviews) was done by Jake Huether, Ken Smith Suzanne Worland and Mike Wooley.  Conducting the interviews were, Jan Buker, Jim Sleeth, Janey Diogo, Shirley Jenkins and me. 

In early June, the information gatherer’s solicited candidates and obtained their responses, which included their transcripts, questionnaires, letters of recommendation and essays.  They edited out the names of the students and retained their transcripts so that those of us doing the interviews were only able to consider the student’s written and oral responses to our questions (including their essays about the importance of the Shuttle program and its affect on their lives).

We received the written responses several weeks before the interviews, to give us time to review the materials before meeting the students.  As you would expect, the responses from each of them varied widely according to their personalities and experience.

Finally, the day of the interviews arrived and we were able to meet the students face-to-face.  (Most of them anyway; some had already begun their first semester at college and so three of our interviews were conducted over the phone.)  As we talked with the candidates, it was quickly apparent they were some exceptionally bright, focused and highly motivated young people.

Over a fifteen to thirty minute period (per student), the interviewers took turns asking questions.  Many of the students were very nervous but still, they impressed the committee with their answers and their poise under fire (so to speak).

Once the interviews were complete, the only thing left was the completion of the evaluation forms.  In each of the pre-determined categories, we assigned a numerical value according to what we found on the questionnaires and heard in the interviews. 

It sounds easy enough, but believe me, it wasn’t.  We forwarded our scores to the information-gathering arm of the committee who combined our input with the student’s transcripts, to come up with the final tally.