2 California Students Join Roster of Rhodes Scholars

Twenty-one men and 11 women, including a Harvard University graduate now studying at UCLA and an engineering major at the University of California, Berkeley, were named Sunday as Rhodes Scholars-elect for 1988.

Sarah McNamer of Billings, Mont., now a first-year doctoral student in medieval and Renaissance English literature at UCLA, received the prestigious honor for her work as an undergraduate at Radcliffe College of Harvard.

Also named was Michele Denise de Coteau of San Francisco, a senior in engineering at UC Berkeley.

Nationwide Competition

The 32 undergraduate and graduate students were selected from 1,100 applicants nationwide. Each was awarded a two-year scholarship to Oxford University.

McNamer, 24, took a year off from studies at Radcliffe to do public service, including a three-month stint with Mother Teresa at a home for the dying and orphaned in Calcutta, India. She also spent several months teaching English in Japan.

In her scholarship application, she wrote: “Although my life will not be devoted to Mother Teresa’s type of work, her example and words continue to guide my actions. ‘We can do no great things,’ she once said, ‘only small things with great love.’ Whether I end up teaching at a small college in Montana, or becoming involved in education on a larger scale, I hope to work with an immediate absorption in the task at hand. Whether great things follow or not, great love will have been given.”

McNamer, who has an extensive history of community service and academic achievement, plans to become a professor, said her roommate, Holly Brewer, a fellow Harvard graduate and UCLA graduate student. McNamer could not be reached for an interview.

The winner from Berkeley said she will start graduate work at Oxford in the fall.

Guide to Minorities

“I’d also like to continue to work with young minority and women students and encourage them to study technical subjects,” said De Coteau. The 22-year-old is an honor student and is majoring in material science.

Ten of the scholarship recipients were from Harvard, including four who were Radcliffe women. Three winners were from Princeton, two from Stanford, two from the U.S. Military Academy and two were from Johns Hopkins University and Medical School, said David Alexander, president of Pomona College in Claremont and American Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust.

Two schools, Oregon State University and the University of Miami, had winners for the first time.

The group includes aspiring doctors, scientists, journalists, actors, musicians and three congressional interns, Alexander said.

“They’re a very diversified group of people, and they combine a strong academic ability with a sense of public responsibility,” he said. “I think they’re typical of the kinds of interest in public service and cultural and academic talent that this very difficult national competition will often produce,” he said.

Basis for Awards

Recipients must show intellectual and academic excellence, character, integrity, interest in people, leadership ability and the energy to use their talents to their potential.

The last quality is particularly tested by participation in athletics, a major consideration in the selection process, Alexander said. None of the winners were on varsity football, basketball or baseball teams, but three of the Harvard winners--including McNamer-- have rowed for the school’s crew.

The Rhodes scholarships were established in 1902 by the estate of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and colonial pioneer who hoped they would contribute to world understanding and peace.

Students apply for the scholarships with Rhodes selection panels through their home state or the state in which they attend college. The selections are made by eight district committees.