Blue Gopher

From one of the more recent emails from Brandon Jones: "Over the next couple months (through July), you probably will not hear much from the Program. There are many steps and people in several offices who will be involved in the funding process of your cohort (98 new start STAR fellows). 98 actions takes a lot of effort, time and energy. Please be patient. We have some new processes in place that will hopefully reduce time to award."

The initial award email from Brandon stated the following: Once we receive all of your documents and the necessary information, we estimate that it will take an additional six to eight weeks from the time your information is received before any offer from GIAMD will be made, so do not be discouraged. If you will be unavailable to personally provide the follow-up information which GIAMD will request sometime in the June, July or August period, please email one of the following individuals: Andre Porter – porter.andre@epa.gov Brittany Gibau – gibau.brittany@epa.gov So, we are definitely back in the waiting game for another 6-8 weeks from the original May 12th paperwork deadline... or, given the statement above, through the month of August.

If anyone receives any info on what's going to be allowed for deferrals, please post it on here. I emailed Brandon twice in the last month and haven't heard a peep. Typically, they don't allow first years to defer, but given that they are treating this as our second year, I'm hoping they will be more flexible. Thanks all!

This is a pretty great system they got here isn't it? It's all so logical and works so smoothly.

I didn't get one of those emails, but that certainly is disconcerting! Did you look over the checklist we've been discussing?

I don't think the direct deposit information is part of the required information at this point. It wasn't on the checklist, and given that all of the emails we'e gotten from Brandon say we've been "recommended" to receive a fellowship suggests, to me, that they will ask for this information once everything is completely finalized. Also, thanks for the info regarding the "submit-button" question Mike. I had a feeling that was the case, but it's good to get confirmation.

As far as I can tell there is no "submit" button, however, it could be that I'm missing it as well. I will say that I've looked through everything pretty thoroughly, multiple times, to make sure that I'm not missing anything. From what I understand, it seems that we simply need to have have everything "checked off" on the list we've been discussing, and they'll take care of the rest. If anyone has seen/heard different, please let the rest of us know.

I don't mean to give anyone who wasn't awarded a fellowship false hope, but the awardees received an email from Brandon last week asking those of us who had changed their minds about accepting a fellowship to let him know ASAP. My first thought was that they may try to "reissue" any unaccepted fellowships.

I found the "Click to Begin" link the most helpful part of the whole process. It's basically a big checklist with links associated with all the parts you need to complete.

Just submitted the last bit of paper work. Now to just sit and wait... some more.

I couldn't agree more! I don't want to appear ungrateful but it is frustrating, and I have a hard time understanding the rationale behind the decision to reduce the fellowships by one year. On another note, I know that the EPA doesn't typically grant deferrals to first year fellows; however, given the unusual circumstances I'm wondering if anyone has heard anything regarding the EPA being more flexible this time around? Given that we'll be starting this fellowship in what is essentially year two (due to the fact that the sequester "absorbed" a year of our funding...?), I'm hopeful that the EPA will be more flexible here.

I haven't heard anything about this either, and assumed that those of us that were funded were funded for the amount requested... ?

to find out who your project officer is, you need to click on the tab entitled "programmatic" on the Fellowship Information Inventory.

Under the Fellowship Information Inventory there are a number of different tabs that are all part of the "questionnaire" that we have to complete. One of these tabs is named "files". You can upload any necessary documentation here. As far as the official transcript goes, my university (and many others I presume) has a system setup where you can receive official transcripts via email. I simply ordered one for myself, and then uploaded it with the other necessary documents. Under the instructions regarding the official transcript it says: OFFICIAL COPY OF CURRENT TRANSCRIPT (REQUIRED; you will need to upload it into the questionnaire) The fact that we will need to upload the document ourselves suggests that we're going to have to "handle" it in some way. If your institution doesn't offer an official pdf version, it may be that you will have to upload a scanned version of a hard copy...?

EPA-F2013-STAR-B2