Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and the Sciences is a project of the National Science Foundation Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate. The participating institutions are Georgia Institute of Technology, Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Emory University. Our mission is to increase the number of science professors from underrepresented ethnic groups.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Page1

FACES Fellows Achievements

_____________

Page 2

Update: CIGand Postdoc

Awardees

Karama Neal_____________

Page 3

Basics of Writing a Cover Letter

_____________

Page 4

Cover Letter Cont.

Sample Cover Letter

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Page 5

ContactFACES

Face ForwardSummer 2009Volume 5, Issue 2

FACES Fellows Achievements• Chimdimnma "Chi-Chi“ Esimai, a graduate student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, GA Tech was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Award, a NASA Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Fellowship Project (declined), and received honorable mention from the Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Diversity Fellowship.

•Christine Gardner, GA Tech, was honored as Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant at the College of Computing Awards Ceremony.

• Crystal Lane, an Emory Graduate Student in the Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis program, recently passed her preliminary exam.

• Erica Bozeman, also a graduate student in Emory’s Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis program, passed her preliminary exam. She also presented a poster at the American Association of Immunologists Conference in Seattle, WA and submitted two first-author papers for publication.

• Francine Morales, Emory, recently passed her preliminary exam.

• Maeling Tapp, GA Tech, received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in Material Science Engineering.

• Meriem Gaval, Emory, received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in Neuroscience.

• Jeremy Tolbert, received two fellowship offers: a NASA/UNCF Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Fellowship and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS!!

2 of 5 Face Forward

Where is Karama Neal?!A question that often comes up. Karama Neal, PhD served as Emory’s FACES program associate from January 2005-December 2008. She decided to return to her roots back in Arkansas and accepted a position as a senior grant writer at Southern Bancorp. Southern Bancorp is a $600 million bank holding company and also the largest rural development bank in the US. In addition to providing regular banking services, Southern Bancorp runs a remarkable community development program in Arkansas and Mississippi. Most recently, in one of the poorest areas in the country, the bank built a biodiesel plant that will open this year, built and opened a boys and girls club, and opened a KIPP school (students entered with standardized test scores in the 17th percentile and four years later, these same students were scoring in the 80th percentile). Karama’s goal is to “promote equal access to health, education, and opportunity for all people through teaching, research, practice, advocacy and service.” And although she works really hard to reduce her carbon footprint, her imprint on the lives of those around her is immeasurable. Karama’s website and blog:Karama Neal, PhD: www.karamaneal.com

http://sowhatcanido.blogspot.com/Southern Bancorp: www.southernbancorp.com

Career Initiation Grant and Postdoc Fellowship AwardsEach year, FACES encourages recent PhD alumni and postdocs of FACES institutions to apply for the Career Initiation Grant (CIG) or the FACES Postdoctoral Fellowship. The Career Initiation Grant awardee will receive $30,000 to use toward lab equipment, travel, personnel, and the like. The Postdoctoral Fellowship awardees will each receive $35,000 to use toward similar expenses. This year’s Career Initiation Grant winner was Asa Awuku. PhD. Post-doctoral fellowships were awarded to Clyde Lettsome and Christina Gardner.For more information on the Career Initiation Grant, please contact Reginald DesRoches, PhD at reginald.desroches@ce.gatech.edu. To learn more about the FACES Postdoctoral Fellowship, contact Raheem Beyah, PhD at raheem.beyah@ece.gatech.edu or Elethia Tillman at ewoolfo@emory.edu.

Going to grad school?

Search the AAAS directory for the perfect program for

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http://tinyurl.com/3pjbm5

The directory is searchable by institution,

subject, and location.

Grad school can be stressful, get help if

you feel it’s too much to handle on your

own

CONTACTS

FACES administrators

Emory Student Health and Counseling Services

GA Tech Health and Counseling Services

Morehouse Counseling

Morehouse Student Health

Spelman Student Health Services

3 of 5 Face ForwardThe Basics of Cover Letter WritingAdapted from Chronicle of Higher Education Article by Richard M. Reis

Your cover letter and curriculum vita may well be the most important documents you will ever write. They are the first things most academic search committees see, and if you don't want them to also be the last things, you need to take the time to do them right. Although both your cover letter and C.V. must be able to stand on their own, they are clearly linked and so should be developed in tandem. It's crucial for your cover letter to engage and excite the search committee so that they look forward to examining the rest of your application material. Do not submit word-processed form letters, search committees can spot them right away. "In almost no time we can reject half our applicant pool just by looking at their cover letters," says Susan Lord, associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of San Diego. Take the time to research an institution and tailor your cover letter to each school and department. Find out enough about the college to which you are applying to show the connection between your qualifications and the position the college is offering. Pointing out this connection in a one-page letter is no easy task and can be time-consuming. But everything you do by way of preparation will be helpful if you are then asked to visit the campus for an interview.

What are the general principles that can be applied to most cover letters?

•Address the letter to a specific individual using his or her correct title whenever possible. (If the advertisement for the position says only, "Chairman, Search Committee," try calling the department secretary for the name of the chairperson.)

•In the first paragraph, explain how you heard about the position ("Your announcement in ... " At the suggestion of ..."), and who you are ("I am completing my Ph.D. in ... under the direction of ... ").

•In the second paragraph, explain why you are interested in the position and the department. Use information found during your background research.

•In the third paragraph, provide a more detailed overview of your research, skills, and any relevant experiences that are related to the position.

•The key in both the second and third paragraphs is to highlight your achievements and qualifications, especially those that make you the right person for the position. You want to connect items in your background with the specific needs of the department.

•In the final paragraph, indicate what you are enclosing and offer to provide extra materials or additional information. Thank the committee for its consideration and indicate you are looking forward to meeting with them in the near future.

A successful job search begins with a successful cover

letter…

Looking for a post-doctoral fellowship?

Check out these sites for

science and engineering post-

docs

www.phds.org

www.nature.com

www.sciencecareers.sciencemag.org

www.nationalacademies.org

Emory’s Office of Post-doctoral

Education

GA Tech’s Career Services Office

Face Forward 4 of 5

Ideally, the cover letter should be one page, and while content is more critical than style, how you write as well as what you say is certainly important. In all cases, use simple, direct language. It is also critical that your letter be free of errors. This may seem obvious, but search committees see plenty of letters with mistakes. The readers will assume you had all the time you needed to put the letter together and so are likely to be unforgiving of typographical and spelling errors. Have it proofread by at least one other person. These are general comments to serve as guidelines for writing your own cover letter. Each letter must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each position. However, if you follow the principles outlined here, you significantly increase the chance that the search committee will take the next step of looking for your enclosed C.V.

Cover letter continued…

Actual Successful Cover letter (personal information omitted)Name of search committee chairpersonAddress

Dear Professor:

I am responding to your advertisement in the [name of journal] for a faculty position in the Materials Engineering Department at San Jose State University. I am a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. My thesis work is in the area of process modeling for semiconductor fabrication and my specific research topic is the diffusion of dopants in gallium arsenide. My thesis advisor is Professor [name], Director of the Integrated Circuits Laboratory in the Department of Electrical Engineering.

I am particularly interested in a faculty position in a department that values teaching. As you may note from my résumé, I have taken every opportunity to teach while at Stanford University, and I have also participated in various educational projects outside of the university environment. These included the Computer Literacy Project, which I founded and directed for three years in a predominantly minority middle school in [city], and Expanding Your Horizons at San Jose State University, a workshop for young women interested in pursuing careers in math and science. At Stanford University, in addition to being a grader and teaching assistant in several electrical engineering courses in semiconductor processing, I helped design and teach a materials science and engineering laboratory course. I also designed and co-taught a new course for undergraduates entitled Electronic Materials Science.

In addition to teaching, I am looking for a research opportunity that would allow me to continue my work in electronic materials processing, structure and properties. At Stanford University I have accomplished original research in pursuit of my degree, as well as contributed to the development of a fabrication line for GaAs digital technology. While working at [name] Corporation I designed and supervised construction of a thin film laboratory research facility and initiated a research project in amorphous semiconductor thin films.

I expect to finish my degree in [date]. I have enclosed my curriculum vita, including a list of publications, and a list of references. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Very truly yours,

name/address/telephone number

FaceForward

The newsletter of the FACES Alliance

in Atlanta

Georgia Tech Spelman

Morehouse Emory…

working together to change the face of the science and

engineering professoriate

Don’t miss a thing!

Back issues of Face Forward

are available at:

www.faces.gatech.edu/2007/

newsletters

Contact FACES:

James Brown, PhDMorehouse College

jpbrown@morehouse.edu404-572-3637

Lily McNair, PhDSpelman College

lmcnair@spelman.edu404/270-5705

Gary May, PhDGeorgia Institute of Technology

gary.may@ece.gatech.edu404/894-2901

Elethia Tillman, PhDEmory University

ewoolfo@emory.edu404/727-6251

http:faces.gatech.edu

http://www.biomed.emory.edu/PROGRAM_SITES/FACES/