The Johnson Scholarship Program 2012 annual report Introducing the Class of 2016
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY
— the johnson scholarship program 2012 — This year marks a milestone for the Johnson Scholarship Program. Even as the fifth enrolling class of Johnson Scholars was taking shape in the spring, the program’s inaugural class of scholars graduated from Washington and Lee, free of debt and ready to enter their post-college lives as leaders of the highest order. The Johnson Scholarship Program continues to enjoy national visibility, putting W&L on the college lists of the world’s top students, many of whom choose Washington and Lee despite not being selected as a Johnson Scholar. An astonishing 67 percent of the Class of 2016 applied for a Johnson Scholarship. Today’s students find in W&L the same fundamental virtues that have drawn students here for 263 years, summed up in the University’s motto, “non incautus fu-
turi,� not unmindful of the future. W&L is responsive to an ever-changing world in its programs and curriculum, all the while staying true to and infusing the student experience with its bedrock principles of integrity, leadership and civility. This year, W&L welcomes 41 Johnson Scholars and all the passions and perspectives they bring to the campus. Their voices will elevate classroom discussion, enrich community life and heighten the University’s sense of what is possible. W&L welcomes them into the ongoing campus conversation about leadership and the well-established W&L tradition of serving others as engaged citizens in a global and diverse society.
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W&L has a long history
of encouraging and recogniz-
ing leadership among its students. The oldest such program, Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK), was founded by W&L students and faculty in 1914. It was the first national college honor society to recognize extracurricular service and today has chapters on over 300 college campuses. Both the Nabors Service League, organized by students in 1999, and the Community-Academic Research Effort connect W&L volunteers with greater Lexington’s needs. The Campus Kitchen Project focuses on hunger relief in Rockbridge County using surplus
John Anderson
Stephen Ball
John Barry
Jacqueline Carson
Maya Epelbaum
David Heinen
Babylon, NY Chaminade High School
Northport, NY Northport Senior High School
Lancaster, PA Manheim Township High School
Williamsburg, VA York High School
food from campus dining services and area donations. To date, this effort has distributed over 100,000 meals to the disadvantaged in Lexington. Even in the week before orientation, incoming students confront poverty’s roots in the Mid-Atlantic region through Volunteer Venture, a student-organized service-learning program. Johnson scholars
follow in the footsteps of the many
W&L graduates among the top ranks of business, journalism, medicine, public service and almost every other field. Twenty-seven W&L alumni have served in the U.S. Senate, 67 have served in the U.S. House and 31 have served as governors. Four have served as Supreme Court justices and seven have been American Bar Association presidents. Forty-six have gone on to become college or university presidents.
Morristown, NJ Morristown High School
Milwaukee, WI Greendale Senior High School
Shelbi Hendricks
Timothy Holder
Michael Holt
Hannah Howard
Louisville, KY Kentucky Country Day School
Henrico, VA Mills E. Godwin High School
Canal Winchester, OH Harvest Preparatory School
Waco, TX Vanguard College Prep School
Ijezie Ikwuezunma Jr. Griffin Johns Richmond, TX Michael E. Debakey High School
Hinsdale, IL Hinsdale Township High School Central
Overall, the class of 2016
includes 40 class or student body
presidents or vice presidents, 46 publication editors, 193 varsity team captains, 27 Eagle Scouts or Gold Award Recipients, and 38 who are the first in their families to attend college. The class also includes world travelers, researchers, pilots, black belts, entrepreneurs, musicians, congressional pages and debate champions.
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Jeffrey Shay Johnson Professor of Entrepreneurship and Leadership The gift that established the Johnson Program for Leadership and Integrity also established two endowed professorships at Washington and Lee, including one in the Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics focusing on entrepreneurship and leadership. Since his arrival at W&L in 2009, Professor Shay has steadily been building an entrepreneurship program that has generated considerable excitement. For instance, an annual Business Plan Competition allows student teams to present their ideas for a new business to alumni judges, and the Venture Club provides real-world consulting services for entrepreneurial firms, including writing business plans and conducting market analyses. “Although my courses focus mainly on entrepreneurship,” he says, “I emphasize the role leadership, integrity, ethics and honor play in successfully launching a new business venture.”
Ellyn Kirtley
Meera Kumar Chandler, AZ Horizon Community Learning Center
Wonhee Lim
Wauwatosa, WI Wauwatosa West High School
Yishu Liu
Alice Moore
Mithra Muthukrishnan
Chicago, IL Whitney M Young Magnet High School
Greencastle, IN Greencastle High School
Alexandria, VA Episcopal High School
Lexington, KY Henry Clay High School
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Arriana Nastoff
Arthur Olson
Mitchell Olson
Kevin Ortiz
Andrea Owen
Joy Putney
Hamilton, OH Ross Senior High School
Charlotte, NC Cox Mill High School
Southgate, KY Saint Xavier High School
Bellaire, TX Bellaire Senior High School
Mesa, AZ Mountain View High School
Yorktown, VA Grafton High School
Nicolaas A. Rupke Johnson Professor of Leadership and the History of Ideas Professor Rupke is an internationally-known expert on the history of science. His first Spring Term course, “Animal Behavior and Human Morality,” explored the history of the way individuals have looked to animal behavior for answers on how humans should conduct themselves. “If animals behave in certain ways, then these ways are natural and therefore beyond reproach,” Rupke said in discussing the course. “If humans share these traits, then they too are free of blame.” Rupke’s books include works on William Buckland, the 19th-century British geologist, and Richard Owen, British contemporary and critic of Charles Darwin and founder of the British Museum of Natural History. He is offering two other new seminars, “Darwin and his Critics: The History of Evolutionary Biology” and “Doomsday Science Then and Now.”
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Johnson LECTURE SERIES Every year, the Johnson Lecture Series
brings to W&L national
and international leaders in business, politics, science, art and the humanities to discuss issues of importance. The series has hosted prize-winning writers, experts on the economy, prominent public servants, successful entrepreneurs, actors and luminaries from other fields, including: • Clarence Thomas, associate justice, U.S. Supreme Court • Roger Goodell, commissioner, National Football
Sarah Rachal
Daniel Rhoades
Daniel Rodriguez Segura
Danielle Rosenthal
Caroline Sanders
Erica Schiller
Jacob Strauss
Anna Thornton
Vienna, VA Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Tech
Gainesville, VA Battlefield High School
League • Lord Robin Butler, private secretary to five British prime ministers • Richard Brookhiser, expert on George Washington, History Channel personality • Liza Mundy, award-winning journalist of the Washington Post, Michelle Obama biographer
Heredia, Costa Rica Lincoln School
Marietta, GA Alan C. Pope High School
Madison Shinaberry
Harrisonburg, VA Turner Ashby High School
Rachel Solomon Jacksonville, FL Stanton College Prep School
Great Falls, MT Great Falls High School
Berkeley Heights, NJ Governor Livingston High School
Spring Lake, MI Spring Lake High School
Nashville, TN Harpeth Hall School
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Pasquale Toscano Kettering, OH Kettering High School
Jean Turlington Clinton, NC Saint Mary’s School
Tierney Wolgemuth
Mount Joy, PA Manheim Central High School
Karen Villarroel
Woodbridge, VA Osbourn Park Senior High School
Graham Young Yorktown, VA Tabb High School
Austin Walker Roca, NE Norris High School
Conan Zhao Henrico, VA Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School
Of the 2,637 applicants for the Johnson scholarship,
196 were
selected as finalists on the basis of their potential to contribute to the intellectual and civic life of the Washington and Lee community and to the world at large. Factors weighed included academic record, writing samples, teacher references, and records of leadership, citizenship and involvement in non-academic activities. The finalists were invited to campus for interviews with faculty, student leaders and administrators; their selection was truly a group effort. Our entire community welcomes them to W&L.
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— johnson opportunity grants—
In 2012, 28 rising juniors and seniors received Johnson Opportunity Grants to support internships and independent research projects all across the country and around the world. Their interests were as wide-ranging as their destinations. Mohamad Amine performed laboratory and field testing for a research project on sustainable bridge de-icing in the civil engineering department at Virginia Tech.
Through the Experiential Learning Program, Kendré Barnes interned at the Children’s Dining Hall and Learning Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she taught English and nutrition classes. Dia’aaldin Bisharat joined a group of Ph.D. students
at the London Center of Nanotechnology in Great Britain to conduct research on silicon-based photonics as a means to generate and manipulate photons rather than electrons. Kelton Buchanan interned in the entertainment industry with Scooter Braun Projects in California, which manages the careers of Asher Roth, The Wanted and Justin Bieber. Gina Bufton spent the summer as a research assistant in the Cognitive and Affective Neuropsychology Lab at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Emily Comer spent her summer at the Ron Clark Academy (RCA) in Atlanta, Ga, where she observed classes with RCA students and participated in workshops related to the school’s innovative teaching methods. Upol Ehsan performed research and interviews with
leading figures in the Mind Sciences as part of his project to explore the “quantization of thought” as part of his honors thesis work in W&L’s department of philosophy. Matthew Gaeta interned at NXT Capital in Massachusetts, a middle-market focused commercial finance
company. His work was in NXT’s newest branch, in venture finance. Manuel Garcia Padilla helped establish a public health education project in an impoverished community on the island of Hispaniola in the Dominican Republic. Matthew Helton worked on a research team at the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland, developing methods of synthesizing biomaterials that have pharmaceutical and medical applications.
▲ Annelise Madison volunteered at Ghana Alliance for Community Transformation (Ghana ACT) in Ho, Ghana, teaching math, English, science and computer skills to underprivileged youth. Kathryn Marsh-Solloway performed fieldwork in art
preservation and restoration as an intern at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural and National Heritage. Dillon Myers was a finance intern in Shanghai, China, where he explored foreign business practices and improved his Chinese language skills. Tamar Oostrom was part of a team of doctors and other medical providers who hiked between remote Himalayan villages treating people in need of medical attention.
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▲
Jonathan Salm was an intern in New York City at RJW Collective, a full-service marketing agency representing Sony, Lacoste and MTV, among others. As an intern with the International Children’s Heart Foundation, Darby Shuler went on a medical mission trip to Guayaquil, Ecuador, to assist dozens of children with heart defects.
▲ Jina Park served on a team of medical volunteers
serving patients in rural areas of Costa Rica. Colleen Paxton worked with the Olympic Broadcasting Services at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, serving as an assistant to the logistics manager in Olympic Stadium. Christine Pence interned as a laboratory assistant for the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) in Seattle, Wash., where she was responsible for leading her own research focusing on diseases prevalent in the third world.
traveled to the village of Pampoyo, Bolivia, to work with W&L’s Engineers Without Borders organization on a water and sanitation project. The village’s primary water source is polluted by a mining facility upstream. Bethany Reynolds took a course on ethnographic research at the Ethnographic Field School in Guatemala. Alexandra Prather
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Mary Rodriguez
was an intern at Casa Mañana, one of the premier theaters in Fort Worth, Texas, where she worked on three different shows, doing everything from sound setup to sewing costumes. Mi Hung (Zoey) Ryu studied the components of human happiness as a research fellow in positive psychology at the Open Polytechnic in Lower Hutt, New Zealand.
Eric Shuman
spent the summer in Bethlehem, Palestine, through the Palestinian Summer Encounter Program. The program aims to help students better understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through volunteerism with local NGOs, staying with a Palestinian family, and coursework on regional issues and the Palestinian dialect of Arabic. Michelle Szymczak went to Shanghai, China, where
she interned for a company that provides overseas investment solutions to high net worth individuals and corporations. Kane Thomas taught English to students in the Hunan
province in China through the Harvard World Teach program. Suong (Clara) Tran interned in Hanoi, Vietnam, with the equity research department of Woori Investment and Securities, a branch of Korea’s largest multinational financial group. Isaac Webb interned with Memorial, an international human rights and humanitarian organization in Moscow, Russia. Zachary Zoller went to Mossel Bay, South Africa, to intern with Project Great White Shark, where he assisted in lab and aquarium-based projects such as tonic immobilization of wild sharks.
— the class of 2016 —
The Johnson Scholarship Program has drawn widespread attention to Washington and Lee from the world’s top student leaders. The 5,972 students who applied for admission represented 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and 92 countries. In its academic record, citizenship and leadership experience, the 479-member class of 2016 is among W&L’s most accomplished—thus far. History
Distinctive Features
Need-based Aid
The ninth-oldest school in the country, Washington and Lee University recognizes and embodies the direct contributions of two of the most influential figures in American history. George Washington’s 1796 gift of James River Canal stock ensured the fledgling school’s survival; Robert E. Lee’s presidency, 1865–70, brought innovation and national recognition to the school.
Honor System—Entirely studentrun; based on the fundamental principle that students attending Washington and Lee will not lie, cheat, steal or otherwise violate community trust.
To ensure that a W&L education is available for all deserving students regardless of their financial background, all admitted students applying for financial aid by the relevant deadline (see go.wlu.edu/ datesanddownloads) will have their institutionally determined financial need fully met with grants, not loans.
Students
Undergraduate—1,788 students from 48 states (85 percent from outside Virginia), representing citizenship in 54 countries Ratio of men to women is 50:50 Ethnic minorities: 14 percent The School of Law—400 students Faculty
Of the 190 undergraduate faculty members, 95 percent hold doctorates or terminal degrees. The student-faculty ratio is 9:1. The average class size is 16. Twentytwo percent of classes have fewer than 10 students, 90 percent have fewer than 25 students, and 97 percent have fewer than 30 students.
Office of Admissions
Curriculum—W&L is the only leading liberal arts college to have a nationally accredited journalism program or a nationally accredited business school, and it is one of the few offering an engineering program. Speaking tradition—As a matter of civility and mutual consideration, members of the W&L community say “hello” to one another— whether passing on the historic Colonnade on the way to class or meeting in the dining hall of Elrod Commons. Academic calendar—12-12-4: two 12-week terms; one four-week Spring Term to allow for focused study, research, travel or internships. Financial Aid, Scholarships
W&L will spend more than $35 million on aid in 2012-13; 48 percent of first-year students receive grant assistance from W&L.
Lexington, Virginia 24450-2116
admissions@wlu.edu
Johnson Scholars
The prestigious Johnson Scholarship Program provides awards of at least tuition, room and board for up to 44 students in each class on the basis of academic achievement and leadership potential. More information about the Johnson Scholarship Program and the other components of the Johnson Program in Leadership and Integrity is available at go.wlu.edu/johnson_scholars. Contact Us
Washington and Lee University Office of Admissions Lexington, VA 24450-2116 admissions@wlu.edu www.wlu.edu (540) 458-8710 (540) 458-8062 fax
www.wlu.edu
(540) 458-8710
Washington and Lee University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran’s status, or genetic information in its educational programs and activities, admissions, and with regard to employment. See complete statement at go.wlu.edu/eeo