Every year, The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation seeks out full-time college students with leadership potential who are in the top quarter of their class and pursuing careers in government, the non-profit sector, education, or other areas of public service. The Foundation provides those they select with financial support for graduate work, and for leadership training with other students who are also committed to careers in which they can work to positively impact the world.
The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation is an Independent Federal Agency established by Congress as an official living memorial scholarship program in honor of the 33rd President of the United States. President Truman often spoke about the importance of developing leaders at a young age, and that was the inspiration for his friends John W. Snyder, who was Secretary of the Treasury during Truman’s administration, and Stuart Symington, then Senator of Missouri, to work together after his death in 1972 toward the creation of the Foundation, which came to fruition through an act of Congress. Truman’s daughter, Margaret Truman Daniel, was also a big supporter of the idea, and the bill passed in December 1974, with President Gerald Ford signing it into law on January 4, 1975. The act authorized the Foundation to award scholarships to students who demonstrate strong potential and plan a career in public service, and to conduct a nationwide competition to select the recipients. The first scholarships awarded by the Foundation were in the 1977-1978 academic year, and since then the Foundation has gradually added additional elements to its scholarship program. In May 1989 it held its first Scholar Leadership Week, and in 1991 it had its first annual Summer Institute. The first Public Service Law Conference was in 2002, and the Truman Fellows Program was initiated with the scholars selected in 2004.
Among Truman Scholar Recipients who have gone on to make a national name for themselves: Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano; CNN analyst and
New Yorker
staff writer Jeffrey Toobin; and George Stephanopoulos, who is currently ABC Chief Washington Correspondent, and host of the channel’s Sunday morning show, “This Week,” and was formerly Communications Director for President Bill Clinton.
The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, governed by a Board of Trustees appointed by the President and Congress, every year awards 60 to 65 $30,000 scholarships to college students with good academic and leadership records who plan to attend graduate school in preparation for careers in government or elsewhere in public service. Across the country, candidates are nominated by their colleges or universities. Six hundred to 700 compete annually for the scholarships, with the Foundation trying every year to select at least one scholar from each state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Islands (American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands).
Applicants must be full-time students pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree, and they are required to be U.S. citizens, or U.S. Nationals from a Pacific Island, or expecting to receive citizenship by the date the scholarship will be awarded. He or she must also have already participated extensively in at least two of the following: student government; community-related service activities; government internships, commissions, boards, advocacy or interest groups, non-partisan political activities, or military/ROTC; or partisan political activities. They must also agree to work in public service for three of the first seven years after finishing their Foundation-funded graduate degree.
The Foundation’s judges include 100 senior public servants, including federal judges, college and university presidents, and past Truman Scholarship winners. So far the Foundation has awarded more than 2,000 Truman Scholarships.
From the Website of the Truman Scholarship Foundation
Meet the 2008 Truman Scholars
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Founded: 1975
Annual Budget: $3 million
Employees: 6
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Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation
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Albright, Madeline
President
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Madeline Albright earned a BA with honors in Political Science from Wellesley College in 1959, a Masters from Columbia University’s Department of Public Law and Government in 1968, and a Doctorate also from Columbia’s Department of Public Law and Government, in 1976. From 1976 to 1978 she was Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie. From 1978 to 1981, she was a staff member of the National Security Council and the White House, in President Jimmy Carter’s administration. In 1981, Albright was awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution. That year she also co-founded the Center for National Policy, and then served as its President. In addition, from 1981 to 1982 she was a Senior Fellow in Soviet and Eastern European Affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 1982 to 1993 she was a Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Women in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she taught graduate and undergraduate courses. In 1984 Albright also served as a Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, and in 1988 she was a Foreign Policy Advisor to Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. From 1993 to 1997, during President Bill Clinton’s first term, she was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a member of Clinton’s cabinet, and of the National Security Council. During President Clinton’s second term, from 1997 to 2001, Albright served as the 64th U.S. Secretary of State and as a member of the National Security Council. She was the first woman to serve as Secretary of State.
In 2003, Albright sat on the Board of the Directors of the New York Stock Exchange. Currently, Albright is the first Michael and Virginia Mortara Endowed Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service; Chair of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs; Chair of the Pew Global Attitudes Project; Co-Chair of the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor; on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations; on the Board of Trustees for the Aspen Institute; and founder and principal of the Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm., and principal of Albright Capital Management LLC.
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