Sat 21 Nov 2009
I am afraid that long-time correspondent Dick Quinn, Director of Sports Information, is still upset with me for noting the absurdity of Williams claiming that John McGill ‘78 is a Nobel Prize Winner. Alas, McGill is still listed that way ,and it is still absurd.
But perhaps I can make it up to Dick by noting that the Rhodes Foundation has a cool new (interface) for finding winners by school. Williams has 34 winners, but the athletics page only seems to know about 18 of them. (I suspect that some of the difference may represent Ephs who won but never played a sport for Williams. Perhaps Marissa Doran ‘05 falls in the category. But most were probably just unknown to current Williams folks when they made this listing.) Unfortunately, I could not figure out a way to determine the name, for example, of the Rhodes winner from the Williams class of 1910. Can anyone? Wikipedia, surprisingly, fails me on this topic.
Previous Rhodes rant here. Williams has claimed in the past to have won more Rhodes than any other liberal arts college. Do we still claim that? I can’t find a link. Seems (pdf) to be true, with Reed in second with 31.
By the way, I do not think that Williams has won a Rhodes since Peter Grudin’s forced (?) departure from fellowship advising. Coincidence? This year’s winners will be announced tonight. Did any Ephs make the finals?
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7 Responses to “Eph Rhodes Scholars”
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Vermando '05 says:
Yes
Derek says:
Social Science 101, first meeting: “Correlation ain’t causality. Any questions?”
dcat
David says:
The winners have been announced. Alas, no Ephs.
1) When did the Rhodes folks stop caring about athletics? Back in the day, every (?) Rhodes winner played (well!) a sport in college. Now fewer than 1/2 do.
2) Some of the bios are . . . well . . . not what Cecil Rhodes probably had in mind. I would quote from them, but readers would probably assume that I was making stuff up.
3) Nice to see 3 winners from the military academies. All female. Why might that be? Random chance?
Derek says:
David–
But Cecil John Rhodes was an intellectual lightweight with almost no interest in intellectual life but a huge interest in securing his own legacy. I’m not convinced his ideal is necessarily the end all and be all.
My understanding of Rhodes Scholarships, which I was never even within sniffing distance of being able to consider thinking about applying for by the way, is that they are to go to the sort of well-rounded ideal, and that physical vigor was supposed to be a constituent part, but that standard has always been pretty broadly considered.
Interestingly, perhaps, Rhodes Scholars tend to have a terrible reputation at Oxford. Most of the folks there see a bunch of smart Americans looking to have fun in the UK for a couple of years, and most do not see it as a serious academic program. That said, I would imagine there is a lot of sour grapes involved — Oxford is legitimately one of the world’s great universities, and yet its most famous program (by far probably) is related to a bunch of damned Americans. To that I say: ha ha!
dcat
hwc says:
David:
The database search engine you linked is only for US winners of the Rhodes Scholarship. It does not provide a complete tally of Rhodes Scholars for a college that had international winners. For example, Swarthmore counts a Canadian citizen and a Zimbabwe citizen among its seven Rhodes winners since 2000.
As an interesting tangent related to a different EphBlog discussion, I see that one of this year’s winners majored in Education.
JG says:
Williams counts at least one Canadian that I knew. And the list at Sports Info only claims to be varsity athletes, not a comprehensive list.
Will Slack '11 says:
@David: Re: 3 – Bait bait bait bait bait.