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- Oct 16, 2011
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A Kenyan-American has become the first black person to receive the University of Connecticut’s Rhodes Scholar.
Wanjiku ‘Wawa’ Gatheru, 20, a senior majoring in Environmental Studies with minors in Global Studies and Urban and Community Studies, is among 32 people in United States elected to the American Rhodes Scholar Class of 2020 to continue postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford in England.
Gatheru, also an accomplished singer, is the daughter of two Kenyan immigrants who grew up in Pomfret.
After being selected, an elated Gatheru took to social media to thank her parents for her great accomplishment.
“Just when I think I’ve run out of tears, they just. keep. coming. I am a 2020 Rhodes Scholar. The 1st in UConn’s history and (by the looks of archives) the first Black person to receive the Rhodes, Truman, and Udall. This is unreal. Mom and Dad – I did it!!” she posted.
The university paper, UConn Today, describes the 20-year-old as a highly accomplished student leader whose academic achievements have garnered national recognition.
She told the paper that she was stunned to hear her name announced on Saturday as one of the newest Rhodes Scholars.
“It felt surreal. I still haven’t been able to shake the sense of disbelief,” she said.
The highly prestigious program counts presidents, ambassadors, business leaders, and many other prominent Americans among its alumni, and is among the world’s most selective academic programs.
Gatheru’s academic and service endeavors had been widely recognized even before the Rhodes Scholar announcement.
She was a 2019 Truman Scholar and a 2019 Udall Scholar, the first student in UConn’s history to win those illustrious honors in the same year.
OTHER PLAUDITS
She has also received several other prominent plaudits during her time as a UConn student, including the McCullough Leadership award, the University’s highest student leadership award.
Gatheru says she plans to pursue a public service career that empowers and supports culturally competent, community-based environmental solutions — particularly focusing on centering the expertise of frontline communities of color.
“The environmental movement is at a crucial crossroads. We have only 12 years to create climate policy that works to both decarbonize our economy and center equity. I want to help make that happen,” she said.
She aspires to eventually run for Congress, perhaps becoming the first black congresswoman from Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District.
She also said that studying at Oxford represents the next step in her goal to uplift the voices of those most adversely impacted by environmental inequities.
Gatheru and her counterparts were selected from a pool of 963 applicants nominated by their colleges and universities, and who were then narrowed down to a smaller group of students who went through a rigorous interview process.
Applicants are selected based on academic excellence; ambition to make a strong difference in the world, including through working collaboratively with others; great personal energy; a proven commitment to service and concern for others’ welfare; and similar attributes.
Gatheru, who is also an accomplished singer, is the proud daughter of two Kenyan immigrants and grew up in Pomfret before spending a year in Thailand as a Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Scholar of the U.S. State Department. That experience, which she completed just before entering UConn, solidified her commitment to culturally competent conservation.
She has completed internships with the City of Hartford’s Office of Sustainability, the Sierra Club, and the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network.
On campus, Gatheru also served as vice president of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and as the student co-chair of the 2019 University-wide Metanoia, pursuing the theme of “Youth for Change.”
As co-founder of the UConn Access to Food Effort (UCAFE), she helped launch the first assessment of food insecurity on a public institution of higher education in the state. UCAFE’s research has since been cited by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and referenced in the creation of both state and federal legislation.
Gatheru is a 2018 UC Santa Cruz Doris Duke Conservation Scholar and a 2018 Newman Civic Fellow, and is motivated to connect grassroots movements to institutions of power. She was a lead organizer in Connecticut’s first Youth Climate Lobby Day, a United Nations Global Health Fellow, a delegate at the 2017 U.N. Climate Change Discussions, a founding member of the President’s Council on Race and Diversity at UConn, and played a critical role in the successful implementation of UConn’s environmental literacy general education requirement.
She has also mentored students as a teaching assistant in the African American Cultural Center, served as a peer research ambassador at the Office of Undergraduate Research, and interned at the Office of Sustainability. She currently serves as the vice president of the Student Union Board of Governors (SUBOG) and as a student programmer at the Native American Cultural Programs.
As a leader of the campus environmental movement, Gatheru also spearheaded the recent “Ban the Bottle” campaign, which resulted in the removal of bottled water from several retail locations on campus.
“While I have the great fortune of working with extremely talented and accomplished students every day, I could not endorse a nomination for the Rhodes Scholarship more enthusiastically than I endorse hers,” Katsouleas wrote in the University’s endorsement letter to the Rhodes Trust earlier this year.
“She is in constant motion, and yet she remains one of the most thoughtful and composed young people I have met,” he said in describing her many achievements, also noting that Gatheru’s academic record is impeccable.
She maintains a high GPA in her interdisciplinary major of environmental sciences, he said, and added she “is a decorated student on track to graduate with highest honors and (is) prepared to excel in the best graduate programs in the world.”
Gatheru said she was stunned to hear her name announced Saturday as one of the newest Rhodes Scholars: “It felt surreal. I still haven’t been able to shake the sense of disbelief,” she said Sunday.
Elliot F. Gerson, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, said in Saturday night’s announcement that this year’s Rhodes Scholars will study a wide range of fields at Oxford including humanities and the social, biological, and physical sciences.
“They are leaders already, and we expect their impact to expand exponentially over the course of their public-spirited careers,” he said.
Gerson also has a UConn connection: His parents, Elizabeth Shanley and Louis Gerson, were UConn graduates, and his father was a professor and longtime head of the political science department.
Gerson, who grew up in Storrs and attended E.O. Smith High School, told Katsouleas in his notification letter Saturday that he was “thrilled” to hear the news from the selection committee that Gatheru is among this year’s class of Rhodes Scholars, saying he holds UConn “in enormous regard, objectively and emotionally.”
Gatheru and the other 31 Rhodes Scholars chosen from the United States will join an international group of Scholars chosen from 23 other jurisdictions (more than 60 countries) around the world, and for the second year, two Scholars from any country in the world without its own Scholarship.
The Rhodes Trust pays all college and university fees, provides a stipend to cover necessary expenses while in residence in Oxford as well as during vacations, and transportation to and from England, according to the Trust’s announcement. The total value of the Scholarship averages approximately $70,000 per year in U.S. dollars, and up to as much as approximately $250,000 for Scholars who remain at Oxford for four years in certain departments.
Source: UConn Today
