Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship

Back in November, you may remember that I applied for a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. This award is described on their website as follows:

Awards are made to individuals who, in the judgment of the review panels, have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

Hundreds of Ph.D./Sc.D. students apply every year. Only 20 are awarded. I only just learned how astronomical my chances were.

I GOT ONE!!!

*happy dance*

I was awarded support for one year ($21,000), plus I am expected to attend a Ford Foundation leadership meeting. *falls out of wheelchair* I can't believe I got it.

Good thoughts, please

With the final transcript being logged this morning and my third letter of reference being uploaded moments ago, my Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship application is officially complete. Wish me luck in getting it this time. It's for a stipend of $21,000 for living expenses so I can actually be in NO to complete my final year.

Also, if you have an extra thought/prayer to spare, would you ask that the National Science Foundation have pity on me and resubmit my grant application to the "appropriate program"? We received an email on Christmas Eve morning that my grant proposal had been thrown out because it wasn't appropriate for the Division of Environmental Biology program.

My whole dissertation is about how environmental stressors alter the development and reproduction (both biological processes) of fish. Huh?

One task down

I submitted the Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship application at 9:13 p.m. Central, leaving me 47 minutes to spare. I'm really taking a chance with this thing because their focus is ethnic diversity and working in an ethnically diverse space. I have, and I do. Hell, our lab personnel at the moment represents five countries among eight people. I played up that plus the fact that I'm in a wheelchair and only 30% of PWDs in the US are employed and many of those near the poverty line. I also banged on about how one rarely if ever sees a PWD at a scientific conference. The last lines of my personal statement:

"Rarely are PWDs seen in the classroom or laboratory, and almost never are they seen at scientific conferences. I want to change that. I want to be a researcher who does great work that she presents at conferences. I want to be a professor who helps all her students to learn no matter what their backgrounds are. I want to be a mentor who shows by example of her life that a person can do anything s/he wants. I have worked within my own status as a minority to earn scholarships, two degrees, good employment, admission to a Ph.D. program, and a past fellowship; I want to help others have the same successes."

Hopefully they'll give me one of their 35 fellowships.

Now to finish the prospectus and the manuscript -- the latter of which I still have not gotten back from my advisor who said he'd give it to me last Monday.