Nugent: It has been a transformational program in a number of ways. First of all, never before had the federal government made a special effort to get professionals with international and language skills, who then had to think about how they would use them in government. We have about 16,000 people who have applied for Boren scholarships and fellowships. These people had to think about how they would use their language skills in government. Only about 5,000 people actually received funding. But you think about the residual impact of working across all the universities and colleges over the years and getting them to think about a different kind of career. I think just in that we have been transformational. Secondly, getting people into areas of the world they would not ordinarily have gone. The third thing is duration. Most students go on these two-week study abroad programs. They don’t do language. Most of our students spend six months to a year abroad, and that has a transformational effect on the student in knowing the culture.
USBE&IT: How do you go about recruiting students? Nugent: We have a pretty good outreach process through our partners at the Institute for International Education. We work through them and all of our partner universities around the coun- try to make sure that they have knowledge of the program. We go around and visit institutions and we rotate every year to make sure we get a good sample. We target specific types of institu- tions, ones that haven’t visited, and ones that we aren’t getting as many applicants from as we would like. And we try our best to make sure we provide support for students from institutions that have not normally sent many applicants to us. We try to be as inclusive as possible.
USBE&IT: So you get a fair number of applications from historically black colleges and universities? Nugent: We do a lot of outreach to minority serving institu- tions and according to the data from this year, 24 percent of our applicants were from minority-serving institutions. Here’s the interesting thing: 24.2 percent were applicants, and 22.9 percent were recipients. So the recipients match the applicant pool.
USBE&IT: What are you looking for as you sort through
applications? Nugent: Applicants have to show that they are clearly com- mitted to working in the federal government in a national security positions and that they are not just interested in the funding to supplement other activities. That is first and foremost. We get about 1500 applications for 284 positions a year, so we can be very choosy about whom we take. We are looking for people who have made a very clear statement about their commitment and tied that in with their overseas study, then put together a full picture of what that will mean for their careers.
USBE&IT: Is there anything academically that matters? Nugent: Certainly, grades and academic performance are
crucial. For the engineering and STEM fields we have made some exceptions that allow students to not go abroad for a full year because we recognize it is more difficult for them to be away that long. Certainly, we look at critical thinking. We’re looking for
52 USBE&IT I WINTER 2012
Dr. Michael Nugent, director, Defense Language and National Security Education Office
great writing skills. Depending on the language, we are looking for people who are not neophyte to the language and folks who are not afraid of being challenged. .
USBE: How big are the scholarships and fellowships? Nugent: Undergraduates get up to $20,000 for one academic
year. Graduate fellows get up to $30,000 total for two academic years. The service requirement starts at one year, but if you are abroad for 13 months, you have to do 13 months of federal service.
USBE&IT: Do you have any sense of how many of these students would not have gone into national security work absent the program? Nugent: Our anecdotes are that just by applying for these fellowships and scholarships got people to think in a way they might not have otherwise. Just by talking to some of these folks, I get the sense that they would not have considered federal service without this award. When you are in college you are not being recruited by the federal government as much as you are by the private sector.
USBE&IT: Has there been any change in the candidate
profile with the economic downturn? Nugent: It is too early to tell. We don’t know.
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