Three Emory University Students Named To USA Today Academic Team, Capping Off Year Of Major Faculty, Student Awards

Emory University has had a banner year when it comes to major faculty and student awards -- first a National Book Award winner, then a Rhodes Scholar -- now three students have been named to the 20-member USA Today 2000 All-USA Academic Team. No school has ever had this many students on the same team. Past recipients, considered by the panel of educators as the "best and brightest college students" in the country frequently have been from schools such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford.

Members of the USA Today All-USA Academic Team receive a $2,500 cash award and are profiled in the Feb. 17 double-page spread in USA Today, along with a description of the students' original academic or service project that was a key element in the team selection. The three Emory award winners are:

o Junior Nir Eyal (hometown New York City) founded the student-volunteer Emory Read program in collaboration with Hands On Atlanta in 1997 to help Atlanta area elementary students improve their reading skills. Eyal also established a group called Emory Bigs, in collaboration with Big Brothers/Sisters of Greater Atlanta, to train volunteers to develop and nurture one-on-one relationships with at risk-children. A journalism/political science co-major, Eyal has worked part-time as an intern in The New York Times Atlanta bureau and currently is a reporter for the CNN student bureau in Atlanta.

o Senior Amos Jones (hometown Lexington, Ky.) was named a 1999 Truman Scholar by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation on the basis of his leadership potential, intellectual ability and likelihood of "making a difference." A Robert W. Woodruff scholar majoring in political science with a minor in African American studies, Jones is a musician and journalist for campus publications, and also has worked as a reporting intern for the Atlanta bureau of The New York Times, and other major newspapers. Jones is active in the Emory community, including serving as president of Omicron Delta Kappa and playing principal viola in the Atlanta-Emory Orchestra. The project that helped Jones gain a spot on the USA Today team was his research on the "unsung legacies" among the black church community in Lexington, Ky. He also is a Knight-Ridder Newspapers National Scholar and a National Merit Scholar.

o In December 1999, senior Danielle Sered (hometown Evanston, Ill.), was one of 32 American college or university students selected as a Rhodes Scholar, the oldest and most prestigious international study award available to American students. The scholarship provides for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England. Sered has won several major awards and scholarships, including a national Norton Scholars Prize from the W.W. Norton Company and the Modern Language Association for her critical essay on the work of Irish poet Medbh McGuckian. For the USA Today competition she wrote about her interviews in Ireland last summer of a dozen women poets, which she is planning to publish in a single volume. Her interview with McGuckian will be published in the forthcoming issue of "Nua: Studies on Contemporary Irish Writing." Sered, an English major/French minor, is very active in the Emory community and has founded Arts Reach, an outreach program for Atlanta city schools and juvenile detention centers, and Emory Women's Alliance, a mentoring network.

"It's not often that any university, in the same year, produces a National Book Award Winner and a Rhodes Scholar, and has so many faculty and students receive major recognition for their scholarship, community service and academic accomplishments," says Emory University President William M. Chace. "On behalf of the Emory community, let me say that we are immensely proud of the accomplishments of our colleagues, particularly of our students whose strength of character, academic excellence and contributions to our university life continue to delight and inspire us."

Emory faculty members who recently have received major recognition for their scholarship include:

o Educational studies professor Vanessa Siddle Walker was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Education for her research and book on segregated education, "Their Highest Potential." The $200,000 Grawemeyer Award honors outstanding works and ideas that could lead to improvements in education.

o English professor Xuefei (Ha) Jin received the National Book Award for fiction, one of the highest literary honors available, for his latest novel, "Waiting." He currently is on leave for a Guggenheim Fellowship.

o History/African American studies professor Leroy Davis was awarded the 1999 Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council in recognition of outstanding writing about the American South for his biography of John Hope, "A Clashing of the Soul." The Lillian Smith Book Awards have been presented annually since 1968 and are one of the region's oldest and best-known book awards. The awards honor serious, well-crafted books that contribute to a better understanding of human rights and other social issues.

o Patricia Owen-Smith, professor of psychology at Oxford College of Emory, has been awarded one of 40 Pew National Fellowships for Carnegie Scholars. The program creates a community of scholars whose work will advance the profession of teaching and deepen the learning of students. The project she will complete as part of her fellowship is "How We Understand: Using Student Narratives to Assess Effects of the New Curriculum."