Scholarship Committee
Annual Report 2006-2007
Prepared by Wes Jones, Chair
Data from Hank Fuller, Director of Financial Aid
The members of the committee for the 2006-207 academic year were:
Ex. Off.
BADM
EDUC
LIBR
ENGL
PSCJ
HIST
MACS
CIVL
CIVL
BIOL
ENGL
EDUC
Naval Science
Rhodes, J.
Jones, W. Chair
Murray, K.
Turner, K.
Heuston, S.
Mays, Terry
Speelman, J.
Rudolph, G.
Plemmons, K.
Bower, K.
Zardes
Lucas
Wehrman
Maxwell, J.
Hank Fuller, Director of Financial Aid, invited three groups of candidates to visit The
Citadel and compete for academic scholarships. The total number of students visiting
campus was 97. The visit dates and subsequent committee meeting dates were:
November 2-3, 2006 Meetings scheduled for November 9 & 16, 2006
January 25-26, 2007 Meetings scheduled for February 1 & 8, 2007
March 2, 2007
Meetings scheduled for March 8 & 15, 2007
The committee voted to offer full academic scholarships to the 40 students listed in table
1. Of the 40 students offered full scholarships, 15 (38%) were from South Carolina and
26 (62%) were from out of state. Table 2 shows the average academic credentials of the
students offered full scholarships versus the students offered partial scholarships.
Table 1
Student Name
Rowland, Michael J.
Beard, Anthony Robert
Gross, Kurt J.
VanSwearingen, John
Conkell, Britney M.
White, Reid
Herb, Alex Scott
Tongtoe, Benya
Ditto, David
LaRocca, Alessandro V.
Finkenauer, Lauren Renee
Hart, Leland M.
Andrews, Helen Francis
Conklin, Geoffrey B.
McLamb, Jasmine Renee
Templeton, Clayton Brett
Weddington, John Mark, Jr.
Koubenec, Noah J.
MacChesney, Scott A.
Hollwedel, Paul William
Leichty, Luke B.
Powanda, Andrew
High, Joseph S.
Kinard, William B.
Musselwhite, William C
Newton, Adam K.
Powell, John W.
Tye, Andrew J.
Brown, Logan Anthony
Gay, Walter Lee, Jr.
Hinkle, Ericka Tonyelle
Knowlton, Winston Caleb
Tkach, Joseph Michael
Allen, Joel T
Gilliam, Taylor D.
Hotchkiss, Daniel H.
Prichard, Daniel J.
Maynard, Ryan T.
Panter, Jordan Lee
Cobb, Tanner Joshua
In State
Average Class Rank %
Average SAT
State
AL
AL
FL
FL
GA
GA
IL
int
KY
MD
MD
MI
MI
NC
NC
NC
NC
NC
NY
NY
OH
PA
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
SC
TN
TN
WA
38%
5%
1223
Visit Date
11/2/2006
1/25/2007
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
3/2/2007
1/25/2007
3/2/2007
3/2/2007
11/2/2006
1/25/2007
11/2/2006
1/25/2007
11/2/2006
1/25/2007
1/25/2007
1/25/2007
3/2/2007
11/2/2006
1/25/2007
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
11/2/2006
1/25/2007
1/25/2007
1/25/2007
1/25/2007
1/25/2007
3/2/2007
3/2/2007
3/2/2007
3/2/2007
11/2/2006
1/25/2007
1/25/2007
29
4.42
Average ACT
Average GPA
Out of State
Average Class Rank %
Average SAT
Average ACT
Average GPA
SC Full
Out of State Full
SC Partial
Out of State
Partial
62%
10%
1213
29
4.06
Table 2
SAT
ACT
1223
29
1213
29
GPA
4.42
4.06
Rank
5%
10%
1247
28
3.95
24%
1224
28
3.74
7%
Additionally, the committee piloted a decision support system developed by Professor
Rudolph. The system will be utilized again in the 2007-2008 academic to enhance the
committee’s decision making. Minutes of all committee meetings are appended to this
report.
Respectfully submitted,
Wesley M. Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
Scholarship Committee Chair AY 2006-2007
Citadel Scholarship Committee AY 06-07
Meeting notes
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Members present:
Ex. Off.
Rhodes, J.
Ex. Off.
Fuller, H
BADM
Jones, W.
LIBR
Turner, K.
ENGL
Heuston, S.
PSCJ
Mays, Terry
HIST
Speelman, J.
MACS
Rudolph, G.
CIVL
Plemmons, K.
CIVL
Bower, K.
BIOL
Zardus, J.
ENGL
Lucas, S.
EDUC
Wehrman, J.
The meeting was called to order at 11:05 am by interim chair, Dr. Jones (BADM).
Acknowledging the presence of a quorum, the floor was opened for nominations for
committee chair for the AY 06-07. The result of the election was that Dr. Jones (BADM)
was elected chair for the current academic year.
LtC. Fuller proceeded to give a briefing about the procedures of the committee for the
benefit of all members.
The committee will meet in about 3 weeks to finalize the essay questions to be asked this
year and to discuss any procedural changes.
Scholar visits are scheduled for the following dates with committee meetings scheduled
for the two Thursdays following the scholar visits
November 2-3, 2006 Meetings scheduled for November 9 & 16, 2006
January 25-26, 2007 Meetings scheduled for February 1 & 8, 2007
March 2, 2007
Meetings scheduled for March 8 & 15, 2007
Respectfully submitted,
Wesley M. Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
Chair, Citadel Scholarship Committee 2006-2007
Citadel Scholarship Committee AY 06-07
Meeting notes
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Members present:
Ex. Off.
Rhodes, J.
Ex. Off.
Fuller, H
BADM
Jones, W. (Chair)
LIBR
Turner, K.
HIST
Speelman, J.
MACS
Rudolph, G.
CIVL
Plemmons, K.
CIVL
Bower, K.
BIOL
Zardus, J.
EDUC
Wehrman, J.
The meeting was called to order at 11:05 am by chair, Dr. Jones (BADM).
Acknowledging the presence of a quorum, the floor was opened for nominations for
questions to be included in the scholarship application process. Four existing questions
and 3 additional question ideas were nominated. The committee decided to table the
additional, unwritten, question ideas for this year’s scholarship competition, but Dr.
Wehrman, Dr. Zardus, and Dr. Speelman will each provide questions for subsequent year
consideration. Three of the four questions were selected for inclusion in this year’s
competition. The questions, attached to these notes, related to:
Hurricane Katrina
Global Warming
Plagarism
LtC. Fuller gave a brief overview of the interview procedure.
Dr. Rudolph will forward to the committee members an evaluation rubric for written
work related to the critical thinking process that we can all utilize when reading the
essays submitted by scholarship competitors. This will add some consistency to the
evaluation process.
The committee will not be scheduled to meet again until after the first round of
interviews in early November.
Scholar visits are scheduled for the following dates with committee meetings scheduled
for the two Thursdays following the scholar visits
November 2-3, 2006 Meetings scheduled for November 9 & 16, 2006
January 25-26, 2007 Meetings scheduled for February 1 & 8, 2007
March 2, 2007
Meetings scheduled for March 8 & 15, 2007
Respectfully submitted,
Wesley M. Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
Chair, Citadel Scholarship Committee 2006-2007
To: Members of The Citadel Scholarship Committee
From: MAJ Scott Lucas, English Dept.
RE: Minutes of 11/9/06 Scholarship Committee meeting.
Members Present: Fuller, Heuston, Lucas, Rhodes, Rudolph, Speelman, Turner, Zardus.
Also present: MAJ Licia Calloway, who helped last Friday with scholarship interviews.
Hank Fuller, substituting for Committee Chair Wes Jones, called the meeting to
order at 11:05. After acknowledging the somewhat small number of Committee
members present at the meeting, those in attendance decided that enough members were
present to begin an evaluation of scholarship candidates.
LTC Fuller then explained the various criteria by which Committee members
were to evaluate scholarship candidates. These included the materials in the candidates’
application folder, the reports on the candidates’ interviews by Citadel faculty (interviews
took place on November 3), and any extra impressions offered by COL Jack Rhodes, who
met with several of the candidates separately in his capacity as Director of the Honors
Program. Hank Fuller also gave the Committee an overview of the status of scholarship
funding for next year’s entering class. LTC Fuller emphasized, as he did at the
Committee’s first meeting, that less money is available for out-of-state students than in
years past, a factor that must weigh in our eventual decision on how to allocate funds.
The Committee then turned to the task of evaluating individual candidates. For
each candidate, the Committee heard a report from the candidate’s faculty interviewer
and listened to an overview of the candidate’s admission-folder materials. Committee
members then discussed the candidate, after which Hank Fuller called for a vote on
him/her.
Based upon our discussions, the Committee members present made the following
recommendations on the question of whether or not to offer full scholarships to the
following students:
Powell—Yes
Rowland—Yes
Sloat—Yes (The Committee recommended him for the Aiken Scholarship)
Smoak—Committee members were split on Mr. Smoak’s candidacy; we therefore
decided to revisit the question of his candidacy at a later meeting.
Sandy—No
Ryan—We did not have admissions-folder materials for Mr. Ryan, so we decided
to postpone a decision on him.
Clark—As with Mr. Smoak above, a lack of consensus on Ms Clark led
Committee members to decide to defer a decision about her until a later meeting.
Conkell—Yes
High—Yes
Gillis—No
Newton—Yes
Hart—Yes
Gross—Yes
After evaluating the candidates, the Committee acknowledged that it had
recommended for full scholarships more out-of-state students than it had expected. The
Committee will thus take up at a future meeting the question of what to do if it has
recommended more out-of-state students than can be offered full scholarships.
LTC Fuller then thanked the Committee members and MAJ Calloway for their
work and reminded them that the Committee will meet again at 1100 hours on Thursday,
November 16, in a convenient open classroom on the second floor of Bond Hall. At that
time, if the faculty interviewers are present at the meeting, the Committee will continue
with its evaluation of those students interviewed on November 3, 2006.
The Scholarship Committee meeting adjourned at approximately 1230 hours.
Respectfully submitted,
MAJ Scott Lucas
Member, Scholarship Committee
To: Members of The Citadel Scholarship Committee
From: MAJ Scott Lucas, English Dept.
RE: Minutes of 11/16/06 Scholarship Committee meeting.
Members Present: Fuller, Murray, Lucas, Bower, Wehrman, Plemmons, Rudolph,
Speelman, Turner, Zardus.
Also present: MAJ Licia Calloway, who helped with the November scholarship
interviews.
Hank Fuller, substituting for Committee Chair Wes Jones, called the meeting to
order at about 1100. LTC Fuller noted that the Committee would vote on the remaining
full-scholarship candidates and reconsider those for whom the Committee postponed a
final decision last week.
The Committee generally based its decisions upon the materials in the candidates’
application folders and, whenever possible, on the reports by the Citadel faculty members
who interviewed the candidates. Since COL Jack Rhodes was out of town on this day,
the Committee was unable to avail itself of his extra input as Director of the Honors
Program.
Based upon our discussions, the Committee members present made the following
recommendations on the question of whether or not to offer full scholarships to the
following students:
Alexander: No
Beja: No
Clark (reconsidered after an inconclusive discussion at our last meeting): No
Conklin: Yes
Covey: No
Gilbert: No
Good: No
Hardina: No
Hines: No
Kinard: Yes
Klecha: No
LaRocca: Yes
Leichty: Yes
MacChesney: Yes
Musselwhite: No
Peterman: No
Powanda: Yes
Ryan: No
Smoak (reconsidered after an inconclusive discussion at our last meeting): No
Smythe: Yes
Stacy: No
Stroman: No
Talley: No
Tye: Yes
Van Swearingen: Yes
Wilson: No
After evaluating the candidates, Hank Fuller noted that we had offered an equal
amount of full and partial scholarships to the candidates interviewed in November. He
also noted that we have already reached our limit of scholarships to offer, so we may well
have to set higher criteria for the next round of candidates applying for full scholarships.
LTC Fuller then thanked the Committee members and MAJ Calloway for their
work.
The Scholarship Committee meeting adjourned at approximately 1245 hours.
Respectfully submitted,
MAJ Scott Lucas
Member, Scholarship Committee
To: Members of The Citadel Scholarship Committee
From: MAJ Scott Lucas, English Dept.
RE: Minutes of 2/1/07 Scholarship Committee meeting.
Members Present: Fuller, Heuston, Jones, Lucas, Bower, Rhodes, Wehrman, Plemmons,
Rudolph, Speelman, Turner, Zardus.
Also present: MAJ Licia Calloway, who helped with the January scholarship interviews.
LTC Hank Fuller and Committee Chair MAJ Wes Jones called the meeting to
order at about 1105 hours. LTC Fuller noted that the Committee had offered $540,000 in
scholarships to candidates in December, leaving a sum less than that to offer those
interviewed in the Spring semester. LTC Fuller urged the Committee in this round to
seek out in particular worthy in-state candidates for full scholarships, because in-state
candidates’ tuition fees are much less than those of out-of-state students.
CPT George Rudolph then demonstrated for the Committee the spreadsheet
document he had developed to assist Committee members in assessing full-scholarship
candidates. CPT Rudolph led the Committee members through the various aspects of the
spreadsheet, and he demonstrated how scholarship candidates could be ordered and
ranked based upon various criteria, such as state of origin and ACT scores. (CPT
Rudolph converted candidates’ SAT scores into ACT scores in order to have an uniform
measure with which to work). He also noted that he had added a “meets criteria?”
column to the spreadsheet, allowing Committee members easily to identify those who
meet the minimum standards, as determined by the Committee, for consideration for a
full scholarship. Further, based upon his calculations, CPT Rudolph estimated in
advance how the Committee might decide upon each of the interviewed candidates,
though he noted that he did this only for demonstration purposes (since we had not yet
heard about the candidates’ essays and interviews at that point). He also showed the
Committee his estimate of how much money it would likely offer to candidates in this
round of evaluation.
The Committee was highly impressed with CPT Rudolph’s work on this
spreadsheet, and Committee Chair Wes Jones praised CPT Rudolph for his “great step
forward” in helping the Committee evaluate candidates. MAJ Jones later suggested that
CPT Rudolph send the spreadsheet to Committee members, so that each member might
try his/her hand at adding to its usefulness. CPT Rudolph did so after the meeting
concluded.
Discussion of the implications of CPT Rudolph’s spreadsheet then followed. CPT
Heuston raised the question of whether or not we should forbid all discussion of
candidates who did not match one of our minimum criteria, since he had interviewed a
candidate highly worthy of consideration who was nevertheless below the minimum in
the ACT column. The Committee agreed that it should evaluate all the candidates as it
has done in the past and not rule out any candidate before raising his/her name for
discussion.
LTC Fuller then raised once more the fact that the Committee had less money to
give out in this term than in the last term, and he reminded the Committee that it was in
The Citadel’s best fiscal interest to offer more scholarships to worthy in-state candidates
than to out-of-state candidates. He suggested that the Committee consider modifying
some of its current standards to help make SC candidates more competitive. After saying
that, however, he also stressed that he did not want to deny any outstanding out-of-state
candidate a scholarship due to fears of lack of money.
The discussion of streamlining the Committee’s evaluation process ended with
COL Rhodes asking for a best estimate on how much money we can offer to Spring
candidates, based on the knowledge that a number of Fall candidates will turn us down
and thus free up funds. MAJ Jones suggested that the Committee gather historical data
on the subject of how many students, on average, decline Fall scholarship offers to help
us estimate possible Spring funding levels.
The Committee then turned to the task of deciding upon those who will receive
full scholarship offers. The Committee generally based its decisions upon the materials
in the candidates’ application folders and on the reports by the Citadel faculty members
who interviewed the candidates. The Committee also weighed the opinion of COL
Rhodes concerning several candidates whom he had interviewed in his capacity as
Director of the Honors Program.
Based upon our discussions, the Committee members present made the following
recommendations on the question of whether or not to offer full scholarships to the
following students:
Andrews: Yes
Baldinger: No
Beard: No
Brown: Yes
Bunney: No
Cobb: Yes
Fischer: No
Greene: No
Heath: No
Hieter: No
Higgins: No
Hinkle: Yes
Jordan: No
Mercer: No
Muise: No
Nolan: No
Panter: Yes
Papke: No
Pichette: No
Prillaman: No
Pulido: No
Ramsden: No
Sieger: Yes
Tkach: Yes
Weddington: Yes
After evaluating these candidates, the Committee agreed to meet next week to
evaluate the remaining scholarship candidates not yet considered. The Scholarship
Committee meeting then adjourned at approximately 1245 hours.
Respectfully submitted,
MAJ Scott Lucas
Member, Scholarship Committee
To: Members of The Citadel Scholarship Committee
From: MAJ Scott Lucas, English Dept.
RE: Minutes of 2/8/07 Scholarship Committee meeting.
Members Present: Fuller, Jones, Lucas, Bower, Rhodes, Plemmons, Rudolph, Turner,
Zardus.
Also present: MAJ Licia Calloway, who helped with the January scholarship interviews.
LTC Hank Fuller and Committee Chair MAJ Wes Jones called the meeting to
order at 1110 hours. CPT George Rudolph began the meeting by demonstrating some of
the modifications he made to the spread-sheet document he devised for assisting the
Committee in its deliberations. CPT Rudolph also showed projections of how many instate and out-of-state scholarships the Committee might optimally offer in this round,
given the amount of money available for spring-semester scholarship offers. His estimate
was two out-of-state and six or seven in-state scholarships. LTC Fuller, however, noted
that the Committee actually has less money to offer than the budget suggests, since the
disposition of some monies is tied up with the disposition of ROTC scholarships. While
warning us of monetary constraints, however, LTC Fuller urged the Committee to award
or deny full scholarships based upon the merit of the candidates and not upon any fears of
lack of funds.
Both at this juncture and again later in the meeting, MAJ Wes Jones raised the
idea of examining the past scholarship-application records of students doing excellent
work at The Citadel. The purpose of such a study would be to discover which areas of
achievement evaluated by the Committee might serve as the best predictors of our
candidates’ likelihood of success as Citadel students. The Committee debated whether or
not to tackle this project during the current academic year, but it did not come to a final
conclusion on the matter of a timetable for the study.
The Committee then turned to the task of deciding upon those who will receive
full scholarship offers. The Committee generally based its decisions upon the materials
in the candidates’ application folders and on the reports by the Citadel faculty members
who interviewed the candidates. The Committee also weighed the opinion of COL
Rhodes concerning several candidates whom he had interviewed in his capacity as
Director of the Honors Program.
Based upon our discussions, the Committee members present made the following
recommendations on the question of whether or not to offer full scholarships to the
following students:
LaPierre: No
Hollwedel: Yes
McLamb: Yes
Knowlton: Yes
Tara: No
Shalala: No
Templeton: Yes
Strohminger: No
Finkenauer: Yes
Gamble: No
Scott: No
Navarro: No
Gay: Yes
Franz: No
Williams: No
Davis: No
Herb: Yes
After the Committee evaluated these candidates, LTC Fuller thanked the
Committee for its work, and he reminded Committee members that the next round of
interviews would take place in early March.
Respectfully submitted,
MAJ Scott Lucas
Member, Scholarship Committee
To: Members of The Citadel Scholarship Committee
From: MAJ Scott Lucas, English Dept.
RE: Minutes of 3/15/07 Scholarship Committee meeting.
Members Present: Fuller, Heuston, Jones, Lucas, Bower, Rhodes, Wehrman, Plemmons,
Rudolph, Speelman.
LTC Hank Fuller and Committee Chair MAJ Wes Jones began the meeting
promptly at 1100 hours. LTC Fuller distributed a list of those who had come on March 2,
2007, to interview for a full scholarship to The Citadel. He noted that one person on the
list, Natasha Kuckuck, had decided to defer her college education and had withdrawn
herself from consideration for a scholarship.
The Committee then turned to the task of deciding upon those who will receive
full scholarship offers. The Committee generally based its decisions upon the materials
in the candidates’ application folders and on the reports by the Citadel faculty members
who interviewed the candidates. The Committee also weighed the opinion of COL
Rhodes concerning several candidates whom he had interviewed in his capacity as
Director of the Honors Program.
Based upon our discussions, the Committee members present made the following
recommendations on the question of whether or not to offer full scholarships to the
following students:
Allen, Charles: No
Allen, Joel: Yes
Bolton: No
Bruneau: No
Cechner: No
Ditto: Yes
Elliot: No
Gilliam: Yes
Holl: No
Hotchkiss: Yes
King: No
Kinn: No for a regular full scholarship. However, he may be considered later for
an Aiken scholarship, if funds are available.
Koubenec: Yes
Mitchke: No
Prichard: Yes
Tongtoe: Yes
White: Yes
After evaluating these candidates, LTC Fuller asked the Committee members if
they had any business that they felt needed to be attended to in another Committee
meeting. The Committee agreed as a group that no new business mandated another
meeting this academic year. Upon this decision, MAJ Jones informed the Committee that
he would write the final report for the group.
Before this meeting ended, various Committee members raised issues to be
considered and perhaps pursued in the next academic year. MAJ Lucas suggested that
next year’s Committee entertain MAJ Jones’ idea that it track the success of fullscholarship recipients to see if it could determine which elements of their applications
served as the best predictors of success at The Citadel. Such a study would help the
Committee to focus on factors (such as, perhaps, SAT/ACT scores, class rank,
extracurricular activities) proven to indicate future success when making its evaluations
of individual candidates. The Committee agreed to raise the idea once more in the next
academic year. CPT Plemmons then raised a concern that some of our candidates may
not be at their best in Friday interviews, if they had not had sufficient sleep in the
barracks during the previous night on their pre-knob visit. LTC Fuller then asked if we
should increase or decrease the number of candidates interviewed at the same time. In
response, the Committee expressed its opinion that four candidates per session was the
ideal number. Finally, the Committee praised the idea of allowing candidates to sit in on
Honors classes during their visit. However, CPT Speelman warned that having all the
candidates observe one class at the same time worked to the detriment of the class being
observed. So many visitors simply overwhelmed the students enrolled in the course, to
the detriment of their performance in class. The Committee agreed to look into better
ways to coordinate classroom visits next year.
With no other business to attend to, the Scholarship Committee meeting
adjourned at approximately 1205 hours.
Respectfully submitted,
MAJ Scott Lucas
Member, Scholarship Committee