The Letters of Excellence Program

The Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowship Mentoring (URFM) is enlisting the help of faculty and staff to identify students who have demonstrated academic excellence, cultivated leadership skills, and served their communities. These qualities are sought after by prestigious national awards that provide funding for transformational experiences, such as international exchange (Gilman, Fulbright, Boren), research (Goldwater, Astronaut, Beinecke), and graduate study (Truman, Rhodes, Marshall, NSF GRFP). Faculty and staff are invited to identify their top student(s) by providing a letter of excellence that acknowledges their achievements and encourages them to pursue opportunities they might otherwise believe are beyond their reach. This program offers positive encouragement to our outstanding students and helps them access the resources they need to make a lasting impact.

While efforts to encourage high-achieving students to seek out opportunities through URFM can occur at any time of the year, URFM has established a timeline through the Letters of Excellence Program. This includes an invitation to an information session that will introduce students to competitive fellowship opportunities and provide information on joining the Spark Fellowship Development Program. Spark is 7-week, non-credit program assists students in defining their personal, academic, and career goals while gaining access to highly sought-after experiences such as research, international study, community service, and leadership, as well as identifying fellowships and funding opportunities that align with their goals.

Which students should faculty contact with a letter of excellence?

Different opportunities are looking for different types of students but there are some themes that run through most programs and awards:

• Academic excellence: This does not mean a certain GPA. While some awards have a cut-off, many do not. Fulbright is a notable example of a program that does not heavily rely on GPA. Students must show intellectual curiosity and a genuine desire to learn.
   
• Depth of engagement: Students should have extracurricular interests that show that they have diverse interests, self-motivation and initiative.  This does not mean a laundry list of student organization participation but rather a few meaningful experiences such as study abroad, research, community service etc. Activities such as sports, music and artistic endeavors not related to class can fall in this category.
   
• Leadership: Students who show an ability to influence and guide others or members of an organization, community or group to have a lasting impact or affect change.

Students identified by the Letters of Excellence program need not have exhibited all these qualities, especially those who are early in their academic career, but rather present potential in one or more of these categories.