Three for the Rhodes

For the first time in University history, the College can boast three Rhodes scholarship winners in a single year.

Undergraduates Erin Bohula, ’99, and Mira Lutgendorf, ’99, along with recent graduate Maureen Dunne, AB’98, AM’98, were among the 32 scholars chosen from more than 900 applicants to study at Oxford University for two years, with tuition and living expenses paid.

Claiming a total of 34 Rhodes scholars, Chicago is now number 10 in the top 10 list of universities with Rhodes winners.

Once at Oxford, Chicago’s Rhodes scholars will be pursuing studies that build on their past achievements in science, culture, and psychology.

Bohula, a biology concentrator, has been recognized for her cancer research on controlling cell growth and will graduate with honors in June. She is deferring her acceptance to the University’s Pritzker School of Medicine to attend Oxford. “I think one of the reasons I got the scholarship was because of my experience as an assistant resident head,” says Bohula. “The job has helped me understand people.”

Lutgendorf is concentrating in sociology and looks forward to studying the relationship between cultural symbols and national identity at Oxford. A published novelist, Lutgendorf one day hopes to form a charter school that will emphasize international understanding.

Dunne’s previous work with autistic children has raised doubts in her mind about the efficacy of psychological tests given to disabled children, which she believes too often emphasize their weaknesses. At Oxford, she hopes to work with children in laboratories with controlled settings, instead of in their homes or at school. “I want to challenge some of the philosophical assumptions that underlie studies of the mind, treat my subjects with care and respect, and use my research to improve human conditions,” she says.

Less than a week after the Rhodes announcement, Elizabeth Evenson, ’99, learned she too was headed overseas, as a Marshall scholar. She will study human rights law at the University of Nottingham, England. President of both the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and the University’s Pro-Life Association, she spent last summer in Bosnia identifying war dead with Physicians for Human Rights.—J.P.