Wilson program in flux

This is the final article of the series.

From a pool of about 600 students, there come forth 20 per class -- amateur researchers with "a fat wad of cash begging to be spent in the bank," Class of 2003 fellow Travis Wilds says. They are the underclassmen Woodrow Wilson fellows of the Krieger School, "diamonds in the rough" entrusted with $10,000.

The early years are the toughest -- topic searching, mentor hunting and trying to fit independent reading into a schedule already packed with underclassman coursework. At school, their peers at school don't really know what they do, and early on, the fellows may know what they want to do but not how to do it. As seniors, the fellows worry that they haven't learned enough or don't have enough to show for their work.

The key is that this doesn't mean the program is a failure. In a sense, the Woodrow Wilson is a golden phoenix, and success can rise from ash.

"Research isn't meant to be easy. I think that feeling [success] can only be learned through failure," said junior fellow Neil Shah, whose second trip to Japan this summer will cap off a trip to Tokyo last summer and two years of topic-refining before that. Wilds, too, dropped one topic for another when the scope became out of hand.

It's not to say that some students don't arrive with a "big bang" and fizzle out, said Tristan Davies, who has mentored two fellows from the Writing Seminars. "It can be at the very end when spectacular things start to happen. This is a super long-term investment."

The trick has been gauging success when the ultimate product is not meant to be perfection, said Class of 2003 fellow Abby Grossberg. As two years of graduates are starting to show, the Wilson program has instilled in its fellows a lesson that only continues to ripen. The best diamonds aren't necessarily complete at their senior year poster session.

Mentors and Mindsets

At the root of the program is the faculty mentor, the Wilson fellows say -- here is where a project will sink or float. In the spirit of Hopkins research tradition, the mentor's expertise is key, and one that has often dictated with it the self-esteem of the students themselves. Sometimes students falter, but they commend Program Coordinator Suzy Bacon and Director Stephen David for unending support. Mindset is everything.

"As a freshman, it is intimidating to have so much money and responsibility, but it also makes you realize you can accomplish a lot if you wake up and don't think of yourself as 'just a freshman'," says senior fellow Annelise Pruitt.

"The greatest strength [of the program] is that it helps students to understand how to discipline curiosity," said anthropology Professor Veena Das, who has mentored three fellows.

Transformation

Back when the program started, though, it wasn't any different. Research is a learning process.

"It started as kind of a joke between my friends and me. I just got $10,000 and what am I going to do? We were all in the middle of 'lala land.' No one really knew what they wanted to do," said Khalid Itum, whose group of 10 fellows entered the fellowship as sophomores, and was the first graduating class in 2002. But the trials of the early fellows have worn a path that is becoming clearer and more refined for each generation of fellows. In most cases, it is a path of success.

Itum, who "was applying to Harvard to transfer" when he heard he was accepted into the pilot year of the Wilson program, went on to spend two years at the Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Bologna, during which he researched the Italian wine industry and AIDS campaigns in South Africa.

The skills he learned continue to evolve with him, says Itum, who recently quit his job to start a travel company. He has included South Africa with his native Jordan as the first two travel destinations, and he continues to fundraise for a South African AIDS charity whose chairperson he met while in Johannesburg. If all goes well, the next fundraiser will feature Dave Matthews. Itum doesn't easily settle for less: "It [the fellowship] gave me a lot of confidence. I'm a CEO my first year out of college."Class of 2003 fellow Niall Keleher traveled with Itum to South Africa and is now a Fulbright Scholar.

Improving the Future

For all their love of the program, the fellows talk freely of change. They talk of expanding the program, admitting more upperclassmen and increasing the accountability of mentors and students. Some say selection should demand "more academic" topics, while others say that the program's greatest strength is its "self-expression."

Bacon and David also joke that they await an applicant with aspirations to travel to Antarctica and Greenland so that they can say that their fellows have been to every land mass on the planet.

"There needs to be some kind of check so that four years of work doesn't go up in smoke," Sekerke says.

As an advisor, Das says students should have more opportunities "to present their research findings to a larger audience." Keleher agrees that there was a "lack of encouragement on publishing or presenting research." Bacon says that student workshops are an idea she would be willing to implement.

Bacon and David acknowledge that the path of independent research is a lonely one, but they are proud of their students' work.

"If you quote me on anything, say Suzy Bacon, Suzy Bacon, Suzy Bacon," Itum says. "They [Bacon and David] bent over backwards for us. What I ended up doing changed my life."