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AROUND THE QUADSThree Seniors Awarded Rhodes, Marshall ScholarshipsLisa Palladino and Nathalie Alonso ’08 
Jason R. Bello ’08 and George C. Olive III ’08 
Emma Kaufman ’08  Three College seniors have been awarded prestigious scholarships. Jason R. Bello ’08 and George C. Olive III ’08 have been selected as Rhodes Scholars, the first time in five years that a College student has won. Also, Emma Kaufman ’08 has been awarded a Marshall Scholarship. This year, 16 Columbians applied for the Rhodes and nine were finalists, according to Michael Pippenger, associate dean of the Office of Fellowship Programs. Last year, Columbia had three finalists for the Rhodes Scholarship. Sixteen Columbians applied for the Marshall Scholarship, which gives students the opportunity to study in the United Kingdom at any university of their choice, and seven were finalists. “These students have won these scholarships not just because of their own innovation, leadership, charisma. They’ve had a whole host of people helping them along the way — faculty, administrators, peers,” said Pippenger. “It’s really a collective effort and a wonderful symbol of the value of the liberal arts education that students receive at Columbia. “It’s a wonderful testament to the community effort involved in supporting students pursuing their intellectual dreams.” Bello, who is from Boston, majors in political science and economics and minors in linguistics. His special interest is in democracy studies, and particularly how democracy flourishes or flounders as a result of new technologies. Bello is active on campus as co-president of Gayava, the LGBT Jewish Student Organization, and is an executive board member of the Columbia Political Union and Black Students Organization, where he is the group’s historian. He also hosts a gourmet cooking show on CTV, The Careless Cook. “I picked Columbia because it’s the best of both worlds — a city school with all the resources of a city but a strong campus life as well,” said Bello. “The political science staff here is also one of the best in the world.” Bello intends to do the M.Phil. in comparative government at Oxford. “I know what I want to get out of it academically; I want to be able to answer some difficult questions,” he said. “But I am also keeping my mind open to learning new things and meeting new people — not just the Oxford community, but also the other Rhodes Scholars. It’s a very diverse group. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of that and meeting all sorts of different people.” Olive, who is from Springfield, Mo., majors in economics and environmental science. His academic work has focused on energy and equitable economic development. Olive has published a paper in Geology and done research in the Caribbean, India and South America. He also has worked on projects related to hydroelectricity, alternative energy technologies and climate change, has done assessments on sustainable energy for the governments of the Dominican Republic and Papua, New Guinea, and has been a catwalk technician sampling seafloor sediments in the Arabian Sea. Of his Columbia experience, Olive said: “To come here and be surrounded by so many intelligent, interesting and creative people has been a gift. It’s something that I’m very thankful for and that I don’t take for granted. It’s been instrumental to my success to be surrounded by people who challenge the conclusions that you’re drawing and who are actually interested in answers and not just in making conversation. I’ve been blessed to have stumbled on true educators who are really invested in the learning and success of their students to the point where they are willing to take chances on them, to vouch for them and to participate in their learning experience.” Olive plans to do the M.Phil. in economics at Oxford. Kaufman, who is from Carlisle, Pa., is a double major in philosophy and women and gender studies and is interested in the relationship between gender, disenfranchisement and criminal justice. In 2007, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for research in criminal justice and has since been a fellow at the Correctional Association of New York, where she interviews inmates, monitors prison conditions and advocates for reform in prisons across the state. “I chose Columbia because of New York City,” she said. “I’m from a very small town, so I sought out the opposite of what I had grown up in. Columbia is obviously the place to be in New York. The Center for Career Education and connections of just being in New York City were essential to winning. I would not have been able to do the internships I did if I hadn’t been in the city.” The Office of Fellowship Programs was instrumental in helping the students win the prestigious scholarships. “I only have glowing things to say about Dean Pippenger and the fellowships office,” said Kaufman. “It has been the single place at Columbia that has felt like a home. [Pippenger] provided a lot of advice to me that had nothing to do with the fellowship, like helping me choose which classes it made sense to take. He was an adviser in the way that you really want an adviser to be.” The Rhodes Scholarships, the oldest award for international study, were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and African colonial pioneer. Bello and Olive will each receive all expenses for two or three years of study at the Oxford, including a living and a vacation stipend. The Marshall Scholarship, established in 1953 by the British government and named for then-Secretary of State George C. Marshall, funds university and research fees, as well as cost of living expenses.
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