Board to Review Rejection of Berkeley’s Fulbright Bids

Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl of the University of California, Berkeley said Friday that the board supervising the Fulbright fellowship program would review the recent refusal by the U.S. Department of Education to consider Berkeley’s applications, which missed the competition’s deadline.

Berdahl said the chairman of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board would convene a teleconference with board members Tuesday.

It was unclear what, if anything, the 12-member board could do to assist Berkeley. The board meets quarterly to establish rules and procedures for the program, but does not select the scholars.

The Department of Education, which administers the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowships, did not accept 30 applications submitted by Berkeley on behalf of its graduate students in October.

The federal agency said Berkeley had missed the Oct. 20 deadline, but Berkeley officials said Federal Express had not picked up the documents as scheduled.

Marie Felde, a UC Berkeley spokeswoman, said Berdahl had been told of the coming review in a phone call Friday with Steven J. Uhlfelder, a Tallahassee lawyer who heads the Fulbright board. Uhlfelder could not be reached for comment.

In a written statement, Berdahl said he was “very heartened by the response of the Chairman of the Fulbright Scholarship Board.”

Since learning in December that the applications would not be accepted, Berkeley officials have enlisted the help of legislators and prominent supporters to ask the Department of Education to reconsider its rejection of the Berkeley submissions.