Adelia Purcell ’27 had an unconventional experience of finding out she had earned the Harry S. Truman Scholarship for public service.
She was studying abroad in Valencia, Spain, for the spring semester, and the time was around 2 a.m. While most universities break the news to recipients of the prestigious scholarship in person, the College of William and Mary had to notify Purcell over email.
The Harry S. Truman Scholarship is a federally funded program that awards $30,000 to college juniors interested in pursuing careers in public service.
Only one student from each state is selected annually for the scholarship. Originally from Westport, Connecticut, Purcell is this year’s Truman Scholar from the state. She is also the College’s 13th recipient.
Purcell — a government major — works for the College’s U.S. Democratic Erosion Event Database and has researched human rights and democracy through the Global Research Institute.
Purcell said one of her passions, alongside academics and research, is sexual violence prevention. She said she has been actively involved with Someone You Know, a student-led sexual violence advocacy and education group on campus. Purcell also works at The Haven, the College’s confidential gender-based violence resource center.
Purcell said these involvements inspired her to pursue her studies and future career in sexual violence prevention.
“[My] freshman spring, [I realized] I can work on the things I care about with the degree I want to pursue,” she said.
Purcell said she focused her Truman Scholarship application on sexual violence prevention policy, adding that she has long observed that most sexual violence initiatives respond to violence rather than working to prevent it. Therefore, the policy proposal Purcell outlined in her application was to use American foreign aid to create global leadership on sexual violence prevention. This would help set nations with previous human rights violations on a path forward.
“It was a really special project for me because I got to bridge the work I do here on campus that’s very rooted in our campus community,” she said.
After Purcell submitted her application, she said it went to a committee of College faculty that was responsible for selecting candidates to interview.
After learning she had been selected as a national finalist, she flew back to the United States for the final round of interviews in Boston, Mass., she said.
Purcell described her final interview as an insane experience. Jet-lagged and finding her words in English after speaking Spanish for months, she and other applicants from the Northeastern United States waited in a conference room high in Boston’s Federal Reserve Bank building, overlooking the whole city. Despite dreading the interview, which is notorious for unexpected questions and frequent topic shifts that force interviewees to think on their feet, Purcell said she ended up enjoying the rapid-fire questioning and found it to be a formative experience.
“That was a really nice thing, having this huge fear looming over my head become one of the best experiences,” she said.
Purcell said she attended Truman Scholars Leadership Week in Missouri with the other recipients after learning she had won.
“I was just blown away by how passionate and how smart and how very forward-focused and oriented toward public service [the recipients] were,” she said.
Now that she’s back on campus for the fall semester, Purcell said she has resumed her campus involvements, including working as a tour guide and being part of a social sorority. She also served as an Orientation Aide in August, welcoming the class of 2030. She is also continuing her work in SYK and the Haven.
After graduating this December, Purcell will remain in Williamsburg, Va., and continue her research involvements. She said she will then move to Washington, D.C. for the Truman Summer Institute, which provides housing for Truman Scholars while they work internships and jobs across the city.
She said she hopes to eventually attend graduate school — partially funded by her scholarship — and continue studying issues she believes can have a positive impact.
“I want to make sure that I am going to study something that I know is the right thing,” Purcell said.
