Winners of Rhodes Scholarships Named : Education: A record 16 U.S. women are awarded grants to pursue graduate studies at Oxford University. Five students with California ties are selected.

By LISA RICHARDSON

Dec. 7, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A record number of American women were chosen as Rhodes scholars on Sunday, making up 50% of the 32 U.S. college students chosen annually to pursue graduate studies at Oxford University in England.

Winners of the scholarships to Oxford were chosen from 1,275 applicants representing 350 colleges and universities, said David Alexander, American secretary for the Rhodes Scholarship Trust and president emeritus of Pomona College.

Women became eligible for the scholarships in 1976, and since then, 182 American women have been Rhodes scholars. Overall, 2,660 American men have won the honor. Before Sunday’s selection, the most American women in a Rhodes class was 14.

“It’s a happenstance,” Alexander said of the 16-16 split. “But it would appear that the number of applications from women is up slightly and we do encourage college representatives to make these opportunities known to women and minorities.”

American Rhodes officials estimate that women typically make up about one-third of the scholarship applicants, while this year they estimate that the applicant ratio was 7 to 5, men to women.

The scholars chosen include a woman who won one of President Bush’s “Point of Light” awards for tutoring children, an aide to Vice President-elect Al Gore and a track star who has modeled in Vogue magazine.

The scholarships are for two years of study, although students are sometimes awarded a third year.

Five students with California roots were chosen as scholars:

* Ganesh M. Gunasekara of Woodland Hills is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is majoring in political science. Gunasekara has studied at the London School of Economics, is editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, the Carolina Critic, and has written extensively about gender-based discrimination. He will study political philosophy and economics, Alexander said.

* Erez Czarnes Kalir, a Berkeley resident who is a senior at Stanford University with a double major in English and biology. Kalir is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, co-captain of the Stanford debating team and teaches poetry and world affairs at a high school in East Palo Alto. He plans to study English at Oxford, Alexander said.

* Niles Pierce of Fallbrook is a student at Princeton University in New Jersey, where he has the best academic record in his class, Alexander said. He is majoring in aerospace and mechanical engineering, plays the trumpet in the Princeton University jazz ensemble and university orchestra and is captain of an intramural soccer team. Pierce will study mathematical modeling and numerical analysis.

* Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles is a political science major at Columbia University in New York. He has volunteered with human rights groups in Ethiopia and Burma, has been in two television movies and is a jazz pianist and published photographer. Garcetti will study international relations at Oxford, Alexander said.

* Loredana Soceneantu, a student at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, is a biochemistry major and has done research at the USC School of Medicine and the American Heart Assn. Soceneantu emigrated from Romania to the United States when she was 10. She plans to study biochemistry at Oxford, Alexander said.

The program, which brings about 79 Rhodes scholars from 17 countries to Oxford every year, was created as a provision of the will of diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes in 1904. Since that time, American Rhodes scholars have occupied various positions of prestige, particularly in government. But recent interest in the program intensified when Bill Clinton became the first Rhodes scholar to be elected U.S. President.

Six current senators, two sitting Supreme Court justices and two members of Congress are former Rhodes scholars.

Winners represent 25 colleges and universities, including Villanova and Bryn Mawr, which had never had a Rhodes scholar. Albion College in Michigan had its second scholar since 1905 chosen Sunday.

The Rhodes scholar winners outside of California are:

DISTRICT ONE, NEW ENGLAND

(Applicants may apply to the state committee by listing their home state or the location of the college or university.)

Peter Beinart, Cambridge, Mass., Yale University.

Sara L. Toomey, Medfield, Mass., College of the Holy Cross.

Gina Raimondo, Greenville, R.I., Harvard University.

Taylor Fravel Jr., Pointe Aux Barques, Mich., Middlebury College.

DISTRICT TWO, MIDDLE ATLANTIC

Nnenna Jean Lynch, New York City, Villanova University.

Jeffrey Seidman, Waite Hill, Ohio, St. John’s College.

John R. Unger II, Martinsburg, W. Va., West Virginia University.

DISTRICT THREE, SOUTHERN