Articles by Matt Ellsworth

We say this over and over again for a reason: The essays on the Flinn Scholarship application are well worth every second you spend on them.

There's nowhere else in the application that you can do more to show reviewers who you really are. And believe me--the selection committee is not going to choose a Flinn Scholar designate whose personality and intellect remain opaque to them.

What's the formula for writing a perfect essay? I can't tell you, because there's no such formula. There's no most appropriate structure, no ideal tone, no preferred focus. Unlike some of your assignments at school, you won't be able to earn a top score if you cover all the points I'm expecting you to cover with minimal spelling errors. We like accurate spelling, but we're not expecting that you cover any particular points.

What are we looking for, then?

Thoughtfulness.

Honesty.

A unique perspective.

A memorable voice.

A story so compelling that reviewers will say, "We have to meet this student."

All in 200 words? Sure. You can do it. Write a couple of drafts of each of your essays, without worrying about the length. If you have 400 or 500 words, you're in a wonderful position--you get to trim out the throat-clearing introduction, the irrelevant vignettes, the least-resonant lines. What will be left, I hope, is a great story. Depending on the essay prompt, it may be a story about you, or a story about something in the world that matters to you.

Want more help?

There was a great blog post in the Times this morning that you should read. It's "The Yellow Test," by Lee Gutkind, who lovers of good writing know as one of our foremost practitioners of narrative nonfiction. His post offers excellent advice about scenemaking in nonfiction writing. This is just what you want to be doing in your application essays.

From Gutkind's post:

Notice — and this is critical — that something happens, no matter how trivial, in each scene excerpted here. The beginning engages a reader, makes a promise. The end of the scene fulfills the promise and makes the audience want to know what will happen next, moving the action forward, ideally to another scene, another block of yellow, until the whole story is told and your point is established.

Do you know how much I'm looking forward to reading your essays? I'm really, really looking forward to it.

(On a side note: You'll notice that Gutkind is right under your nose--teaching at Arizona State University. And one of the stories he excerpts is about the extraordinary clinical oncologist Daniel Von Hoff, previously director of the University of Arizona Cancer Center and now physician-in-chief at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix. Like we always say, Arizona's universities possess some of the most amazing faculty talent in the world.)

After Scholar alumnus Jeremy Babendure ('97) graduated from ASU, he headed to the University of California at San Diego to work with recent Nobel laureate Roger Tsien and earn a doctorate in biomedical sciences. Upon finishing his Ph.D., Jeremy dedicated his professional energies to science education, establishing with Dr. Tsien an educational outreach program called ScienceBridge.

Now Jeremy has returned home to Arizona, as director of the Arizona Science and Technology Festival, a new initiative spearheaded by the Arizona Technology Council Foundation, ASU, and the Arizona Science Center. The inaugural Festival will occur during February 2012 with events at sites across the state.

What are the aims of the Festival, and how big an undertaking will it be? Here's what Jeremy has to say:

The Arizona Science and Technology will be 6-week statewide celebration involving 200+ orgs in industry, education and community to inspire Arizonans about how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) will drive the future of Arizona.

Through a series of hands-on activities and workshops, discussions, exhibitions, concerts, and tours centered during the month of February 2012, the First Annual Arizona SciTech Festival’s goals are to (1) brand Arizona as a leader in science and technology; (2) inform/inspire our future workforce about opportunities in AZ; and (3) serve as a focal point to bring diverse stakeholders in workforce, education and community together.

We anticipate the festival will reach 100,000+ Arizonans through 300+ activities that take place in diverse neighborhoods throughout the state with: signature events highlighting the innovative character of each region (aerospace, technology, bioscience) with high energy exhibitions and shows; 20+ neighborhood hubs providing workshop and discussion opportunities at accessible locations such as libraries and community centers; tours of science/technology facilities statewide; and activities, talks and challenges in-schools to get kids engaged before, during and post festival.

Something this big doesn't happen without energetic support from a lot of people. Individuals and organizations wishing to participate in and support this unique opportunity to showcase Arizona's scientific strength and potential should contact Jeremy--today.

On March 2, Beryl Jones, Connor Mendenhall, and Mitch Turbenson were honored as the University of Arizona’s “Pillars of Excellence,” recognizing exceptional contributions to the campus and community.

Congratulations to all three, with thanks for your scholarship, your civic engagement and editorial acumen, and your tireless service to and through the arts. “Pillars” are structural, load-bearing features of a structure, and you each have carries significant weight. UA’s rightly proud of you!

... eventually, two of them will be cited, in consecutive paragraphs, in the New York Times.

Here's "This is Your Brain on Metaphors," yesterday's column by Robert Sapolsky for the Opinionator blog, in its regular series on philosophy, the Stone. His subject? The "why" behind an incredible mystery:

Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck. We understand that Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” isn’t really about a cockroach. If we are of a certain theological ilk, we see bread and wine intertwined with body and blood. We grasp that the right piece of cloth can represent a nation and its values, and that setting fire to such a flag is a highly charged act. We can learn that a certain combination of sounds put together by Tchaikovsky represents Napoleon getting his butt kicked just outside Moscow. And that the name “Napoleon,” in this case, represents thousands and thousands of soldiers dying cold and hungry, far from home.

Read down a few paragraphs, and you find Sapolsky citing a 2006 Science article co-authored by Katie (Awerkamp) Liljenquist ('95):

In a remarkable study, Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto and Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University demonstrated how the brain has trouble distinguishing between being a dirty scoundrel and being in need of a bath. [...]

After that, it's time to hear from Daniel Sullivan ('04):

This potential to manipulate behavior by exploiting the brain’s literal-metaphorical confusions about hygiene and health is also shown in a study by Mark Landau and Daniel Sullivan of the University of Kansas and Jeff Greenberg of the University of Arizona. [...]

No, we haven't sent Sapolsky a list of additional Scholar-experts for his next columm. But we could.

We talk a great deal about public policy in the Flinn Scholars Program, but how many of us understand how our state government really operates, and what led to some of its present practices? High-school civics class doesn’t begin to map this complex landscape.

To understand how public policy emerges from idea to practice in Arizona, you might try the briefing book for the 97th Arizona Town Hall, which concluded yesterday at the Grand Canyon. Reading Arizona Government: The Next 100 Years--also the title of the three-day Town Hall--will leave you a better-informed voter and more-fully engaged citizen as we approach our 2012 centennial.

In a chapter that begins on page 77, you’ll also discover some of the work for which alumna Kim Demarchi ('93) is well-known.

Matt Rolland ('05), one of the chaperones on the Flinn Scholars' 2010 Central European seminar, has provided an invaluable gift to the Scholars Program.

After I-can't-guess-how-many hours of careful selection, arrangement, and editing, Matt has released a photo-and-video slideshow that truly captures the wonder and wonderfulness of our annual pilgrimage to Hungary and Romania. As you would expect from Matt, who is quite the musician himself, the slideshow is accompanied by the perfect soundtrack of folk music from the regions we visited.

For Flinn Scholarship applicants whose interest was piqued by our travelogue, and for Scholar alumni whose tenure preceded the addition of this aspect of the Flinn Scholars program, here's what all the fuss is about:

Between late next month, when Flinn Scholarship applications go live, and the middle of next May, when we announce the Class of 2011, one of the most frequently asked questions that Foundation staff will receive is:

"So, what is the Flinn Scholarship worth?"

Sometimes, I can just about see the wheels turning in an applicant or parent's mind as I rattle off what the award provides--an allotment for study and travel abroad, funding for room and board, the value of eight semesters of tuition provided by the university. Add it up, and you have a sum near $90,000.

People tend to hear that number in a couple of different ways.

For some people (this was me in the fall of 1993), it sounds almost like the Powerball jackpot, the kind of largess that would change one's life. I was one of those applicants for whom it was either win the Flinn Scholarship or scrape together work-study, a partial scholarship, tons of loans, and still be living pretty frugally--definitely lacking the resources for study abroad, for example.

For other people, the monetary benefit of the scholarship sounds, well, small. I've quoted a figure that's almost insignificant. Over the course of a year or two of researching universities, they've gotten used to the idea of Ivy League sticker prices, to the extent that $200,000 for tuition alone has started to sound normal.

In either case, though, if I answer that question--"What is the Flinn Scholarship worth?"--by talking about money, I've given an answer that isn't really accurate. The Flinn Scholarship doesn't have that much to do with money.

I say that while fully aware of how beneficial it was to not have money worries as an undergraduate. My options expanded dramatically. My capacity to concentrate my energy on my studies, on creative pursuits, on campus activities, on travel--all of that was magnified tenfold by the modest financial freedom that the scholarship permitted me.

But still, the Flinn Scholarship doesn't have that much to do with money. I think this is closer to what it means:

A few weeks ago, I was emailing back and forth with a Scholar alum who was in town to visit family for the weekend. The alum told me that something wasn't right at home; the alum's father was showing indications of some kind of neurological problem. It wasn't an acute event like a stroke, but it had apparently been worsening rapidly over the course of several weeks. The alum, a young doctor, was growing worried.

Because I was about to leave on vacation, I didn't learn for more than a week what happened. The alum ended up taking the father to the emergency room at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center the next day. Within 48 hours, he was in surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute to have multiple brain tumors removed.

Having recently lost my own father to a long struggle with cancer, I understood some of what the alum was experiencing. Still, there was really very little I could do to help. But I knew who could. I wrote the alum another email:

We have a Scholar alum who's the medical director of neurorehabilitation at Barrow. Christina Kwasnica has stayed in close contact with the Foundation, and I'm sure she would be receptive if you run in to any obstacles in the next little while. I'd be happy to put you in touch with her.

Tina Kwasnica ('87), a graduate of Mesa Dobson High School, had returned to Arizona after med school at Northwestern University, and had soon enough assumed important clinical leadership roles at Barrow. Earlier this year, Phoenix Magazine called Tina (pictured on the right) one of metro Phoenix's five "most innovative physicians who are taking patient care into the next frontier."

The alum wrote me back late that night:

Ironically, Dr. Kwasnica is my dad's neurorehab doc and I just got off of the phone with her. I love the Flinn family. Now I am much more reassured, even though I haven't even met her in person, that my dad is getting terrific care. Isn't that funny?

How do you quantify the value of gaining a second family?  I can't. And that's why, when I meet an applicant or a parent, it can be so hard to answer their questions satisfactorily.

If I have enough time, I end up resorting to stories like this one. There are more of them, many more, stories that just about any current or alumni Flinn Scholar could tell of what the Flinn scholarship is really worth.

Photo by flickr user nathangibbs

The New York Times fixation on Flinn Scholar weddings continues. This time, it's Parmi Suchdev ('94) getting hitched.

In a few days, Eric Jackson ('93) and his family will be returning to southeast China, where Eric and his wife Emily will be investigating some of the endangered dialects spoken by minority communities in the regions of China near the Vietnamese border.

We've reached the time of year when Arizona's universities begin naming some of their most outstanding graduates. And no surprise: Our own Joe Fu ('03) is among the award winners.

Joe is the recipient of the Robie Gold Medal. According to this news item from UA, the Robie is awarded to one male and one female student who "show personal integrity, initiative, cooperativeness, enthusiasm, humility, well-rounded interests, active participation in student affairs, service to the University and willingness to give more than required and show a love of God and country."

That sounds like more than any one person could achieve, but that's Joe, all right:

At various times, he's worked with the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Arizona Cancer Center, and the Arizona House of Representatives. He's won the Truman Scholarship and a fellowship from the National Science Foundation. And he has conducted health-care outreach in India, Thailand, and Burma.

Has he slept during college? About that, I'm not sure...

Brad Ford ('92) plays all four parts of "Bantu," a guitar quartet by Andrew York.

When Emily Ricq ('05) went to France last year, it wasn't just for the Mona Lisa and french fries.

She was in Paris at the Université Pierre et Maire Curie, where she was researching the properties of special lipopeptides--organic compounds--that can penetrate cells.

For her research, Emily has now won the 2009 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science for Life Undergraduate Creativity Award. Among 150 entrants for the award, she was one of five winners of HHMI awards for science.

"Emily is a great student to have around and is challenging in the best sense of the word," said Lynne A. Oland, a research scientist in the UA's Arizona Research Laboratories Division of Neurobiology, where Emily continues to conduct her research. "She is persistent, focused and loves what she is doing."

You can read more about Emily's work here.

It was about 15 years ago, and we hadn't figured out yet exactly what we could make of the Flinn Scholarship's travel component. Then--if these distant memories are accurate--we saw Ruth Allard's ('90) slideshow from her trip to Costa Rica, where she'd done some conservation work for a summer.

If you're a top-level materials chemist with experience building molecules atom by atom, Ambature wants you.

Last month, Bob Hanshaw ('06) received the Creative Achievement Award at the Honors Convocation in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona. His nominator for the award, which was given to one undergraduate and one graduate student, was Elizabeth Schauer, associate director of choral activities and an associate professor of music in the School of Music. Dr. Schauer agreed to share with me some of what she said about Bob:

The highlight of Bob’s creative life to date (and he’s only a junior!) was the performance of one of his compositions by the Tucson Symphony Orchestra (TSO).  As a senior, he submitted a work for their high school “Young Composers’ Project” in 2006, at which time the ensemble read the work (this was part of the award for the work being accepted).  TSO asked Bob to revise the work for a larger orchestra, and performed it on their “Celebrate the Future” concert.   It is a single-movement work, formally based on a haiku that was written by a friend of Bob’s. [...]

Bob also is active in the community as a musician.  He has performed as a jazz musician at the Westward Look Resort, served as paid baritone section leader and summer choir leader for the Chancel Choir at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.  Finally, Bob also founded and leads an independent rock band called Boreas.  With this group he performs frequently in Tucson, and has recorded an album that was just released in September.  Not only does he provide musical leadership, but also his artistic efforts in the digital layouts for the album artwork.

As with so many of our Scholars, those ellipses leave out many accomplishments and activities. But Dr. Schauer's words surely provide a glimpse of Bob's exceptional artistic talent.

(In the video above, from April, Bob is performing on vocals for The Hermit Tree, a band that also includes Scholar Matt Rolland ('05) on mandolin and Scholar alum Daniel Sullivan ('04) on drums.)