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Updated information relating to the Department of Defense’s SMART (Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation) Program
Building on a SMART Idea!
General Background Info on the SMART Program.
In the legislative actions which followed the Terrorist attacks of September 2001, Congress took action to update the National Defense Education Act of 1958 to specifically address a growing imbalance in our Defense workforce skill mix. This action was taken based on a growing consensus of the ‘state of the health’ of our national defense technical workforce as reported in a variety of independent assessments, national security reports, defense urgencies and technical workforce shortfall predications.
A new DoD-wide scholarship and fellowship program was established to help provide financial support to any USA citizen who desires to pursue an accredited degree in the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) academic disciplines. This program, know as the SMART Education Program (SMART = Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation) is designed to address workforce needs for the entire Department of Defense. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has championed this program since its initial planning stages as an important tool to address the highest priority technical workforce shortfalls across the Dept of the Navy (DoN). This program, by design, is different from all Defense scholarship/fellowship programs that have preceded it in that its support for students does not stop at the point of graduation. Being such a versatile tool this program is appropriate for use within the DoN as a human resources (Human Capital Strategy planning, workforce shaping, etc) retention tool (advanced degrees for current DoD employees) as well as a recruitment tool (attracting new employees to the DoN). Within DoD the Office of Naval Research’s role is to serve as the single point of contact for the Dept of Navy and integrate the “sponsorship” requests of independent naval organizations into a single, prioritized Dept of Navy request.
All candidate applications were made available at a secure DoN website. Within the Navy all NRE constituents (SYSCOM warfare centers the Naval Research Laboratory) were asked to respond with a prioritized list of candidates of interest from the entire pool of applicants. Separate Navy NRE/command selections were then incorporated into an overall Navy response that attempted to balance future workforce sll needs among the laboratories and centers throughout the Navy. The Navy’s single prioritized selection list was submitted to NPS and incorporated into an overall DoD response that attempted to balance Navy needs with those from other DoD services and agencies.
One of the important differences the SMART Education Program has from all other existing Defense scholarship programs is that the SMART Education Program has a service payback requirement — one year of service at a DoD research facility for every year of scholarship support.
All SMART Scholarship/Fellowship awards will be based on Service, laboratory or warfare center critical skill workforce need projections. Awards are good only at accredited U.S. institutions of higher education offering degrees in the SME areas specified in the official scholarship announcement on the ASEE website. The candidates' full scholarship/fellowship costs will be paid for by DoD (SMART) program funds but the requesting Navy organization will be obligated to employ that person (for at least their service obligation payback period) upon successful completion of academic requirements and graduation. It is very important that (SMART sponsorship) requesting Navy organizations *Do Not* request or recommend an applicant for a SMART Award if they have no intentions of eventually attempting to hire that person as a full-time employee. The intent of this program is to respond to DoN high priority workforce critical skill shortfalls and such a misuse would be detrimental to the entire program. Organizations that do not attempt to fulfill the Navy’s employment obligation commitment can expect to have future sponsorship selections forfeited to fill other naval organization needs.
Applications are highly encouraged from all USA citizens (including DoD employees), particularly women, persons with disabilities, and members of all ethnic and racial minority groups.
Organizational Roles within DoD.
The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) has been designated as the Executive Agent (EA) for the DoD-wide SMART Scholarship & Fellowship Program. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has been designated as the lead naval organization to coordinate Department of Navy workforce needs for submission to NPS. As has been the case in the past ONR will provide NPS with a Dept of Navy consolidated, and prioritized, DoN Sponsorship request list. NPS will receive similar consolidated and prioritized lists from the other Defense Services and Agencies (Air Force, Army, DTRA, etc) and has the responsibility to thread the separate DoD Service/Agency requests into a final DoD-wide prioritized sponsorship listing.
SMART Awards for in 2006
Last year SMART Education Program selected a talented group of students. For the 2006 round of scholarships 316 applications were reviewed. Of those, 49 initial offers were made, and eventually 31 scholarship awards were made. Of these 31 awards, the Navy is sponsoring 10 students, the Air Force is sponsoring 9, the Army is sponsoring 4, the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency are each sponsoring 3, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Defense Information Systems Agency are each sponsoring 1 student. For the Navy, the 2006 SMART Education Program scholarships were awarded to:
• Alfred Baca (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
• John Blood (Purdue University)
• Jenifer Diver (Pennsylvania State University)
• Nathan Farrington (University of California, San Diego)
• Deborah Goshorn (University of California, San Diego)
• Arnold Kiefer (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
• Phillip Land (Alabama A&M University)
• Tony Lee (Syracuse University)
• Anirudha Siripuram (University of Washington)
• Anton Yen (University of California, San Diego)
Congratulations to the SMART Scholarship Award Recipients in 2007!
Last year SMART Education Program selected a talented group of students. For the 2007 round of scholarships approximately 1600 applications were received and processed. Of those, approximately 125 offers were made and more than 105 of the scholarship offers were accepted. Of this years awards, the Navy is sponsoring 44 students! For the Navy, the 2007 SMART Education Program scholarships were awarded to:
- Abby Anderson (Auburn University - Main Campus)
- Isabel Anderson (Stevens Institute of Technology)
- Steve Bachmeier (Stanford University)
- Jeremy Bagley (University of Washington - Seattle Campus)
- Matthew Bays (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)
- Teresa Berra (Smith College)
- Frederick Birchmore (University of California - San Diego)
- Courtney Boykin (Alabama A&M University)
- Elssa Bumiller (University of Virgina)
- Robert Cole (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)
- Curtis Conkey (University of Central Florida)
- Karen Cooper (University of Central Florida)
- Basil Etefia (University of Southern California)
- Steven Fastow (Rochester Institute of Technology)
- Brien Flewelling (Texas A & M University)
- Pedro Forero (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities)
- Daniel Freeman (Michigan Technological University)
- Daphne Fuentevilla (University of Maryland College Park)
- David Gerber (University of Huston)
- Dennis Gonzalez (San Diego State University)
- Matthew Greytak (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Alex Grintsvayg (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
- Tyler Helble (Scripps Institute of Oceanography)
- Tony Homan (Ohio State University, Main Campus)
- John Koch (University of Missouri – Rolla)
- Natasha Lagoudas (Texas A & M University)
- Mayer Landau (University of Rochester)
- Mark Littlejohn (Mississippi State University)
- David Maciupa (University of Akron - Main Campus)
- Kristen Moore (Clemson University)
- Lonnie Parker (Georgia Institute of Technology)
- Alex Phipps (University of Florida)
- Keith Pifko (University of Pennsylvania)
- Randall Plate (TBD)
- Marquita Priester (Clark Alanta University)
- Joanna Ptasinski (University of California - San Diego)
- Michael Roman (TBD)
- Andrew Schlueter (Purdue Univeristy)
- Adam Schreiber (Clemson University)
- Grace Shih (University of Arizona)
- Jay Snell (Brigham Young University)
- Robert Wilhelm (Drexel University)
- Heather Wilson (North Carolina State University)
- Jason Wong (George Mason University)
The complete list of award recipients can be found on the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) website at www.asee.org/fellowships/smart/winners.cfm
Orientation at the Naval Postgraduate School
During the summer the Naval Postgraduate School holds a brief SMART Program Orientation Workshop in Monterey, California. This years orientation session will be held August 30th.
Program Managers from the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Research Laboratory are planning to attend in order to provide the 2007 SMART candidates a high-level overview of their service’s anticipated future skill needs and answer questions about the program.
The Navy is planning to once again support this years orientation workshop support by arranging for Navy-sponsored mentors and Human Resources managers from a variety of naval research and development laboratories to attend the orientation, meet the students and discuss program and career objectives.
Feedback from those students and academic professionals who attended last years orientation was very positive.
For those planning to attend this years orientation the Hyatt Regency Monterey (within walking distance to the naval Postgraduate School, at URL = http://monterey.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp) is now accepting reservations for the SMART Orientation on August 30. Please call them at 831-372-1234 to reserve a room for if necessary. If you make a reservation at the Hyatt Regency Monterey please indicate your reservation is part of the Naval Postgraduate School’s SMART Orientation Program and you will receive the negotiated preferred rate of $153. At the Hyatt Regency, if you pay with your government credit card CA State taxes will be waived.
Application Process for 2008 Awards.
A call for applications was recently (August 15th ) posted at the ASEE website (URL = http://www.asee.org/fellowships/smart/index.cfm). For any USA citizen that might be interested in competing in the 2007 application process now is the time to have them get their paperwork in order. As indicated at the ASEE website completed applications will be due by COB 15 December 2007. We expect an ASEE/DoD application review panel will meet in early 2008 and final award selections will be made no later than April 2008.
Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
As the SMART Education Program grows in awareness among USA citizens, the US academic community as well as within the Defense Department, there are more and more articles being written about the program. Here are a couple of links we know about:
SMART Program Points of Contact
The Department of the Navy’s primary POC for the SMART Program is Bob McGahern (bob.mcgahern@navy.mil). At the Naval Postgraduate School, the SMART Program POC’s are Deborah Shifflett (Director of Programs; dsshiffl@nps.edu) and Eric Servais (SMART Scholarship Program Assistant, emservai@nps.edu)
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