Three Harvard Juniors Enter Competition for Beinecke Award

Three juniors applied for the Harvard nomination to receive the nationally awarded Beinecke Memorial Scholarship, and fellowship advisers at the Office of Career Services and Off Campus Learning (OSC-OCL) yesterday said they are disappointed that so few students applied.

Big Bucks

The scholarship, established in 1970, pays senior tuition, extra expenses and up to $3000 for expenses related to two years of graduate study in the arts or sciences.

"I can't figure it out," Robert J. Ginn, Associate Director of the OSC-OCL, said yesterday, adding, "We are unhappy about it."

Two Reasons

Ginn cited two possible reasons for the small number of applications, including that this is the first year the Beinecke scholarship is being offered to Harvard juniors, and is not in the fellowships guide.

The scholarship will be included in the fellowships guide next year. Ginn said that this will "help significantly" to increase applications for the scholarship. Ginn said, "Juniors are not normally alert to fellowships," He added that there is an increasing number of fellowships for juniors and that the OCS-OCL "has to do a better job of alerting juniors."

Late Notification

Ginn said there was not enough time to give the Beinecke scholarship sufficient publicity because Harvard was notified of its eligibility for the award only five weeks ago, and started publicizing it through newsletters four weeks before the March 6 deadline.

Harvard juniors will be eligible for the scholarship next year unless the Harvard nominee this year is chosen as a recipient, in which case they will not be eligible for three years, the duration of the fellowship.

"I'm kicking myself for not having applied," said one junior who wished to remain unnamed. He added, "I expected more people to apply."