In her column (“Students Must Ensure the Future of Feminism at GU,” THE HOYA, April 18, 2004, A3), Emily Liner writes: “a few female students have told me that they have felt uncomfortable in the competition for fellowship nominations on campus, but I could never get them to talk to me because they were afraid that the Office of Fellowships would reprimand them.” Lest this unsupported innuendo discourage women from applying for fellowships in the future, let me offer a few statistics:

In the last four years, Georgetown students have won three Rhodes Scholarships, and two of our three Georgetown Rhodes winners have been women.

Georgetown students have won 11 George J. Mitchell scholarships since 2001, and four of the 11 were women.

This year we had 45 students apply for the Fulbright Program, and 27 of these students were recommended to the country. Fifteen of these 27 students were undergraduates; nine of the 15 are women. To date, four undergraduate women and three undergraduate men have been selected as Fulbright scholars.

Applying for these fellowships is not easy. There is no guarantee of success no matter how hard one tries. There are simply not enough fellowships for the number of talented students graduating each year in the United States. However, the statistics show that women are doing just as well as men, and these numbers are consistent throughout the 20-plus fellowships we oversee.

Just to clarify, we seek out and encourage talented and ambitious women and men to apply for the wide range of fellowships.

Carolyn Emigh
Associate Director, Office of Fellowships
April 24, 2008