Request your support for the Roosevelt Scholars Act of 2009
At this critically complex time in history the challenges government face are only increasing in importance. Which leads to a thesis: never before in our history has our nation relied so much on our public servants– and our need for great thinkers/leaders/doers will only increase in the future. Therefore, we should do everything possible to ensure we are motivating the nation’s greatest humans to take up the challenge of public service.
U.S. Representative David Price (D-NC) and Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) are working on legislation that holds the potential to dramatically improve our nation’s ability to groom and attract individuals pursuing graduate degrees in high-skill, high-need areas like computer science, information technology, engineering, medicine, foreign languages and law. The legislation is known as the Roosevelt Scholars Act of 2009. The House bill focuses on graduate-level scholarships, and will probably be introduced by the end of June (watch for a slip till after the 4th of July recess). The Senate bill includes both undergraduate and graduate scholarships (this is reportedly the only differences in the two that will need to be resolved), and may follow after the House version.
The key component of both House and Senate version of the act is the ability to provide scholarships to individuals in a program modeled on the military’s very successful ROTC program, which has proven to be an outstanding source of new talent for our nation’s armed forces.
This program will enable more of today’s youth to enter public service with less burden, and will also provide many with the ability to pursue advanced technical degrees they might not be able to pursue without scholarship. More important than all that, however, is the impact this will have on the future of our federal cadre and the future of our nation.
If you agree with the thesis above, I would like to encourage you to show support for the Roosevelt Scholars Act by contacting your members of Congress. Your support is important at this stage. It is also important to let your voice be heard via other paths: perhaps by old media (write letters to the paper), but hopefully also by the new media you are no doubt already active in (your blog, your Facebook page, LinkedIn, and of course Twitter).
Would you like more information? Want to sign an online petition? Visit the website of the non-profit Partnership for Public Service page for this act, the URL is: www.ourpublicservice.org/roosevelt
Thanks!
Bob
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This sounds like something I would have applied for enthusiastically as a college student. Good cause.
Thanks Lewis. You are an exemplar of public service and we need to motivate 1000’s of more to follow your lead.
This Roosevelt Scholars program sounds like a good idea, but it’s a bit limited for this moment in our history, don’t you think? Why just a scholarship program? The federal government already has a bunch of such scholarships — Gilman, Udall, Goldwater, Pickering, etc. Few kids know about them, and they do little to change the culture.
Better to invest that money to build an institution, something permanent, something visible, something that Americans can be proud of they way we are proud of our military academies. There’s already a bill in Congress to create a “civilian West Point” called the U.S. Public Service Academy (HR 2102). That’s where Congress should put its focus!
I think you make some good points, but I also think something needs to be done in a much bigger, better way than the things we already have and I think this scholarship act is better than the many smaller ones that are already out there. This can make a big positive difference.
There already exist very good programs in both public and private universities. University of Southern California School of Public Admin [where Hilda Solis recieved her MPA -- a very good program that offers both state, local and federal govt experience through internships]
New York University, [as well as Harvard] have excellent schools of public admin and policy. Why not partner with who is already in business, and offer scholarships through these existing programs?
As an update the following is from The Partnership for Public Service ourpublicservice.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 2009
Contact: Samantha Donaldson
202-775-9111
PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE APPLAUDS REPS. DAVID PRICE AND MICHAEL CASTLE FOR INTRODUCING THE “ROOSEVELT SCHOLARS ACT OF 2009”
Washington, D.C. – Partnership for Public Service President and CEO Max Stier released the following statement commending Reps. David Price (D-NC) and Michael Castle (R-DE) for introducing the Roosevelt Scholars Act of 2009, legislation that creates an elite graduate school scholarship program with a unique payback – a commitment to serve our country in mission-critical federal jobs.
“We applaud Representatives Price and Castle for their leadership in introducing the Roosevelt Scholars Act of 2009. In the coming years, the federal government needs to fill more than 200,000 mission-critical jobs. Similar to the military’s largely successful ROTC program, Roosevelt Scholars will help make federal service a more affordable and attractive career option for our nation’s top talent. It also helps our government build and improve the caliber of the federal workforce.”
The Roosevelt Scholars Act will establish a small nonprofit foundation to manage the scholarship program and award scholarships to graduate students. Recipients will receive tuition, support for room and board, and a small stipend for each year they are enrolled in graduate degree programs consistent with a list of approved mission-critical occupations such as law, security and enforcement, public health, science, engineering and accounting. Upon graduation, Roosevelt Scholars will be required to spend three to five years working in the federal civil service.
The Partnership for Public Service works to revitalize the federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve and by transforming the way government works. Visit ourpublicservice.org/roosevelt for more information.
I have these observations:
1) since they mention debt and ‘less burden’ this means that govt jobs will not pay appreciably more than they do now. So their solution is to offer welfare to candidates instead of making these salaries enough to compete in an open market with other comparable positions. I’m not sure turning a stint at a govt job into a charity situation is the solution.
2) I’ve heard this compared to the ‘ROTC’. However, recruiting for the army is not like recruiting for various govt. depts for public service. For one thing, the military has age/gender restrictions [women can't yet serve in active combat and you can't join the military past a certain age]. As far as I know, this is not the case for public service, and some choose a public career as a second career. Who exactly do these scholarships involve? As far as I know, they can’t place age restrictions on govt service.
If they wish to recruit, then they could do something like the teaching programs that currently exist to recruit teachers. I’m sure there are out of work engineers and computer programmers that would take them up on it, or other professionals in areas that have experienced layoffs. However again, I have reservations about getting people especially this huge number they quote, into public service on the premise they’ll make less money, in return for a scholarship.
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