Three Yale Students Chosen as Rhodes Scholars

A Yale College senior and two recent graduates were among the 32 men and women recently chosen as Rhodes Scholars from among 935 applicants endorsed by 323 colleges and universities in a nationwide competition.

The newest Rhodes Scholars from Yale are:

Jennie S. Han, a Yale senior from Mission Viejo, Calif., who is working toward a joint M.A. and B.A. in political science. Han, whose interest is the former Soviet States of Central Asia, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Han was involved with Reach Out, Speak Out, an undergraduate organization at Yale that trains local high school students in the art of debate. While at Yale, she was awarded a Beinecke Brothers Memorial Fellowship and a Wendy Blanning Summer Fellowship.

Ariel David Adesnik, who graduated from Yale College in 1998 with a degree in history. Adesnik, who wrote a column for the Yale Daily News, won the Thacher Memorial Prize for Public Speaking and the John Nicholas Spangler Scholarship for character and ability. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he was a freshman counselor at Yale and worked for the Ties program, which offered tutoring to New Haven public school students. Adesnik, of New York City, was awarded a Fullbright grant to student in Germany, but declined it to be a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Rachel Kleinfeld, of Fairbanks, Alaska, who graduated from Yale College in 1998 with a degree in ethics, politics and economics. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she is a human rights activist interested in history and international diplomacy. Kleinfeld founded a chapter of Amnesty International at Yale and edited the Yale Journal of Human Rights. She worked as a neighborhood specialist with New Haven’s Livable City Initiative and is a fundraiser for the Settlement Housing Fund in New York City.

Rhodes Scholarships provide two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England. The Rhodes Trust pays all fees and provides a stipend to cover expenses while in residence at Oxford as well as during vacations. The oldest of the international study awards available to American students, British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes in his will created the Rhodes Scholarships in 1902.

The criteria for Rhodes Scholars are high academic achievement, integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership and physical vigor.

Yale University and the United States Military Academy were the only institutions this year to have three students chosen as Rhodes Scholars.