Truman Scholar
Alex Bores '13 has been named a 2012 Truman Scholar.
Fifty-four students from 48 U.S. colleges and universities were selected from among 587 nominees.
Applicants were rated on leadership potential, intellectual ability and the likelihood of "making a difference," according to the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, which sponsors the scholarships.
Joanna Smith, A&S '13, also was named a Truman Scholar.
Bores is a Cornell Presidential Research Scholar, a Cornell Board of Trustees member, president of Cornell Students Against Sweatshops and active in many university organizations.
A New York City resident, he plans to pursue a law degree and concentrate in international labor law.
Scholars receive $30,000 for graduate study, priority admission and supplemental financial aid at some graduate institutions, leadership training, career and graduate school counseling, and internship opportunities within the federal government.
Recipients must be U.S. citizens, have outstanding leadership potential and communication skills, be in the top quarter of their class, and be committed to careers in government or the not-for-profit sector.
Congress established the foundation 1975 and funds its activities through a U.S. Treasury trust fund. There have been 2,844 Truman Scholars since the first awards were made in 1977.
From a pool of 14 Cornell juniors, the applications of five students were selected by the endorsement committee to go forward to the national competition. Four of those five students were invited to finalist interviews with the Truman Foundation.
The campus selection committee, chaired by Cornell's fellowship coordinator, Beth Fiori, included Kate Bronfenbrenner and Professor Risa Lieberwitz, both of ILR; Professor Mary Katzenstein of Government and American Studies; Richard Kiely, director, Center for Community Engaged Learning and Research, and Alan Mathios, dean of the College of Human Ecology.
Bores was then interviewed in New York City by the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, a U.S. District Court judge, the New York State commissioner of education and Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker and CNN, among others.
Bores and Smith join 20 other Cornellians who have won Truman Scholarships since 1977.
Cornell is one of six institutions with more than one Truman Scholarship recipient this year. The other institutions are Amherst College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rice University, the University of Michigan and Washington University.