Two Cornell Students Named Rhodes Scholars
Kerry CloseCornell Daily Sun
Two Cornell students were among 32 Americans selected as Rhodes Scholars for 2013, according to the scholarship program’s website.
Christopher “Kit” Dobyns ’13 and Daniel Young ’13 will join about 85 students worldwide as members of this year’s Rhodes Scholars class. The Rhodes Scholarship –– the oldest international fellowship program in the world –– finances two years of graduate study at Oxford University in England, according to its website.
Dobyns is an Africana studies major with minors in inequality studies and law and society. He hopes to pursue a master’s degree in refugee and forced migration studies, according to a University press release.
“I was incredibly humbled when I heard I had been chosen. Studying at Oxford will greatly enrich my life’s work, and I know that such an opportunity would not have been possible without the support that I received from my professors,” he said in the press release.
Dobyns, a scholar of Kiswahili and Zulu, has taught English in Rwanda and worked at an orphanage in Tanzania. He has also developed a curriculum for South Africa’s National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities and another on human rights abuses for a high school in Rwanda, according to the Rhodes Scholarship website.
Additionally, Dobyns founded a company that distributes low-cost energy in rural Nigeria and a non-profit that provides consulting to social entrepreneurs, according to the website.