Apply for a Mortar Board Fellowship

Are you planning to go to grad school? Already enrolled? Either way, all Mortar Board members pursuing further study in graduate or professional school are eligible to apply for Mortar Board National Foundation fellowships. Thousands of dollars will be available for Mortar Board fellowships for the 2011-2012 academic year, with applications due on or before January 31, 2011.

The Mortar Board Fellowship Selection Committee has designed applications to provide for a streamlined, yet thought-provoking application process that allows each applicant to showcase her/his accomplishments and plans. This committee reviews all completed applications.

A completed application for a Mortar Board National Foundation fellowship consists of three parts, outlined below. The deadline for receipt of the completed application (all three parts) is January 31, 2011.

1. A Microsoft Word application form (available here), completed in full, and sent as an e-mail attachment to fellowships@mortarboard.org;
   
   
2. A current, official transcript from every institution of higher education that you have attended, postmarked by January 31, 2011 and mailed to:

Mortar Board National Office
1200 Chambers Road, Suite 201
Columbus, OH 43212

3. Two recommendations, which should be completed in a Microsoft Word, saved and e-mailed to fellowships@mortarboard.org. The recommendation form is available online at http://www.mortarboard.org/forms/FellowshipRec.doc.


1. One recommendation must be from a faculty member or other person who is able to attest to your academic ability, personal qualities and achievement. < /br>
2. One recommendation must be from a past or current advisor of your Mortar Board chapter.

How to "network"

Networking. It's that buzz word that professionals throw around. You might picture networking as a crowd of suit-wearing people, munching on appetizers and sipping a drink, socializing and eventually exchanging business cards. It’s much more than that, though.

When you think about it, nearly every exchange – even answering a phone call – can be considered networking. You're getting to know new people, and you're exchanging information with them. By making good impressions with these individuals, you can positively expand your network to build mutually-beneficial relationships.

So, how does this networking process work? Here's a simple guide.

1. Meet new people! You can do this in many ways. You can join a professional association, book club or sports group; take a cooking class; go to a party where you won’t know many people. All of these are great opportunities to make new connections.
2. Get to know them. Don’t just have surface exchanges where you forget someone’s name and your eyes go blurry as they explain what they do. Ask about their job and their hobbies. Something as simple as asking about one of their favorite things to do in their city can give you a wealth of information. Oh, and exchange business cards.
3. Wait, you don’t have business cards? Print them. Even if you’re a college student or currently unemployed, print a business card at a local print shop or online at inexpensive companies such as VistaPrint (where sometimes, all you pay is shipping). Include your contact information and major or skills (such as "Joe Schmo, Marketing and Economics Student" or "Jill Hill, International Business Professional").
4. Don’t forget them. If you have poor memory, make some notes on yoiur new friend's business card, in your BlackBerry, on a gum wrapper – whatever. Write it down now, transfer it if necessary, and by all means, remember it later. If you hear of a job opportunity they might be interested or see a movie you are sure they’d love, drop them a quick e-mail. Networking isn’t just about making the initial connection, but building a relationship over time.
5. Follow the golden rule. Always be kind and helpful to your connections. You can offer advice or be a sounding board for ideas. If you have expertise they don’t, you can lend a hand with project they’re working on. Who knows? They could repay the favor by showing you the portfolio that never fails to land them a job and give tips on how to improve yours.
6. Go online (of course). Build connections on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and in real life. Keep your profile updated, and post relevant items your contacts will share. If someone posts a question and you can answer, by all means – do it!

Now, get out there and network!

No More Driving Home From Work Thinking, “I Wish I’d Said”

No doubt you’ve been put on the spot or cornered in conversation. We all have. Maybe it happened in a discussion you had last week or even yesterday. Perhaps, embarrassed in public, your response just wasn’t good enough. You felt somehow inadequate, and angry. You wasted hours—maybe even days—dwelling on the event and rolling it over and over in your mind. You castigated yourself with each and every replay and perhaps ended up hating the person or people whom you held responsible for your disgrace. Then, suddenly in the midst of your unrelenting misery, it came to you. “I should have said....” But it’s too late now. All you can do is wonder: “Why didn’t I think of that then?”

The answer is simple. If you find yourself in this kind of situation often, you didn’t think of saying it because you haven’t yet mastered the art of the comeback. You’re not alone, and the good news is that this condition is temporary.

No one is born a comeback expert. It takes trial and error, adherence to a set of principles about communication, and practice of an array of options. What it doesn’t do is require you to be someone other than yourself—just a more astute version. And you don’t have to turn into a communication pro overnight. The most expert among us, even those people who seem to know what to say under any and all circumstances, have their “If only I’d said” moments.

So where do you start?  First you look at your own patterns. As I wrote about in THE SECRET HANDSHAKE, each of us is at least 75% responsible for how people treat us. If someone at work says to you, “That idea is stupid,” you’re at a choice point. You can lash back at the person or you can decide that advancing the idea is more important or that despite what he said, you’d like to maintain this relationship. One possible response:  “I thought so too at first. But a lot of innovative ideas seem that way” and then go on to explain your idea as if this person didn’t insult you at all.

Communication happens so fast that people say things they regret almost instantly. If you don’t give them the chance to reflect on their error and instead attack, then a mistake on their part may lead to a permanent ending to what might otherwise be a good relationship.

Then there are those times when the offense wasn’t accidental. You were clearly insulted. These situations usually call for more direct, “I’m wondering if what I heard was what you meant to say?” or “If I reply in kind, we’ll both be out of line.”  With a boss who is insulting, in order to make him or her think twice, you might want to say, “You’re my boss, but that doesn’t mean anything goes.”  If that’s too strong, there are many milder ways to make a person think twice before continuing in a dysfunctional pattern with you. Try comebacks that buy time like, “That’s an interesting twist,” “Hmmm, I hadn’t thought of it that way,” “You may want to say that again – you know, differently.”

If someone says, “You’re stubborn.”  You could get angry or defend yourself. Or you could simply say, “You’re right. I am persistent.”  Stubborn and persistent describe similar ways of being, but persistent is respected more. It’s a tweaking of words. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

- Kathleen Kelley Reardon, Ph.D., special guest blogger

Dr. Kathleen Reardon is a professor at USC, also blogs at www.comebacksatwork.com and is regularly featured at Huffingtonpost.com. Her newest book, COMEBACKS AT WORK:  USING CONVERSATION TO MASTER CONFRONTATION (Kathleen K. Reardon with Christopher T. Noblet), is available online at Amazon.com.