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NEWS
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March 29, 2004 -- No. 181 |
UNC, Duke announce winners
of Robertson Scholarships
Note to editors: Individual photos of Robertson Scholarship winners can be downloaded at http://www.robertsonscholars.org/ winners_2004/. A list of the winners, including those from your area, is below.
Thirty-eight top high school seniors, including students from Ethiopia and Tanzania, have been selected as the Robertson Scholars Class of 2008, President Nannerl O. Keohane of Duke University and Chancellor James Moeser of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced Monday.
The Robertson Scholars Program is an innovative joint merit-based scholarship program at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke. About half of the Robertson Scholars will matriculate at Duke and about half will enroll at UNC. All of the students take courses at both schools and spend a full semester in residence at the other campus.
Robertson Scholars attending Duke receive full tuition, while UNC-Chapel Hill Scholars receive full tuition, living expenses and a stipend. The program also provides summer community-building and enrichment opportunities in the United States and abroad, support for research and related travel, and laptop computers for each scholar.
The scholars are selected based on criteria of proven academic excellence, collaborative spirit, leadership ability, commitment to community and behavior grounded in strong ethical principles. This year’s winners come from 20 states and Washington D.C., as well as Ethiopia and Tanzania.
"I congratulate the newest Robertson Scholars," Moeser said. "We are particularly excited about this group because as members of the fourth class of Robertson Scholars they bring the program to full strength. Next fall, for the first time, we will have first-years through seniors on campus.
"Besides the intellectual vigor they add to Carolina and Duke, the Robertson Scholars also have become a terrific emblem of the best kind of academic collaboration between our two institutions."
The Robertson Scholars Program has greatly enhanced inter-university collaboration since June 2000, when Julian and Josie Robertson of New York founded the program with a $24 million endowment gift. Robertson Scholars come together for special seminars taught by faculty of both universities, research projects and service-learning programs. The program also runs an express bus for free between Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill and offers collaboration grants to faculty and students at each university to support joint programs between the two institutions.
"Having been present at the creation of the Robertson Scholars, it gives me great satisfaction to see that in our fourth year we will be welcoming such an outstanding new cohort to round out the program," Keohane noted. "While these new scholars will learn a great deal from their counterparts among the first three Robertson classes, they will also make an indelible mark as leaders in their own right, with a unique group identity and personality.
"Thanks to the high profile of the Robertson Scholars, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill people work more closely and socialize more often, and the Class of 2008 will benefit more than any other to date from the exchange of culture, service learning, ideas, programs, teaching and facilities of both these great universities."
Robertson Scholars are chosen from the applicant pools at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill. There is no independent application process, though students can complete a form to express their interest in the scholarship and provide additional information about their leadership and service involvement.
This year’s class was selected from nearly 19,000 admission applications at UNC-Chapel Hill and nearly 17,000 admission applications at Duke. From these applications, each campus identified 120 semi-finalists. Selection committees at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill invited 84 finalists to Durham and Chapel Hill on March 20-23 for interviews.
Three students who interviewed at both Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill -– Andrew Cunningham of Rutledge, Vt., Michael Thomson of Morristown, N.J., and Anthony Watkins of Camp Lejeune, N.C. -- were offered the scholarship by both schools, and must decide whether to be a Robertson Scholar at Duke or UNC-Chapel Hill.
The winners, their hometowns and their high schools are:
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
Duke University:
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