Third-years named Truman scholars for public service, policy proposals

College third-years Anyu Fang and Kristin Greer Love have been named Truman scholars, a distinction awarded to only 75 American college students each year. Chicago is one of only five institutions with multiple award winners.

Fang, an Economics major who spent his early years in China before he moved to Virginia for high school, plans to use the $30,000 award to study human rights law. Fang, 21, has interned with Amnesty International’s legislative office in Washington, D.C., as well as in Congress with Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), and is interested in some day returning to work on legislation that deals with shelter and food as human rights issues.

In addition to his studies, Fang is an executive board member of the student group the Giving Tree, a social justice organization. He also has organized many campus education events about food and housing insecurity and has led community service trips to South Side homeless shelters.

Fang also founded the University’s French Club during his first year in the College. Because he is interested in economic development, he has studied Francophone African countries, and he studied abroad in South Africa during his second year. This summer, he plans to intern at the Fairfax County, Va. Department of Housing.

Love, a joint History and Law, Letters and Society major, originally from Bloomington, Ill., plans to use the scholarship to pursue a career in children’s rights law. During the past two years, Love, 21, has served as a docent, education intern and education advisory committee member at the Smart Museum of Art, where she promotes arts integration as an education reform initiative. That experience, Love said, taught her firsthand about educational inequities in public school systems and is what is driving her to advocate for children’s rights.

Love, who is working to bring organic foods to campus dining halls, leads the Green Campus Initiative, an organization dedicated to improving the University’s environmental sustainability.

She recently returned from South Africa where she was studying in the University’s African Civilization program. She anticipates returning this summer to work for the Treatment Action Campaign, an organization that uses litigation to secure anti-retrovirals for impoverished people.

To become a Truman scholar, applicants must demonstrate a long record of public service, go through several rounds of interviews, and write a persuasive and critical public policy proposal. Fang wrote his on alleviating homelessness in urban America, while Love wrote about how to integrate arts education in public elementary schools by working with museums.

This is the first time the University has had two students receive Truman scholarships in the same year. Only Swarthmore College had more scholarships with three students receiving the award.

“Truman scholarships support what is most powerful about a University of Chicago education—the ability to bring learning from the classroom to the thorny issues that we confront as a society,” said Susan Art, Dean of Students in the College. “The College is enormously proud of Anyu’s and Kristin’s accomplishments and potential for making positive contributions to the world.”

The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation was established by Congress in 1975 as the official federal memorial to the 33rd U.S. President. The foundation awards scholarships to college students who have outstanding leadership potential, plan to pursue careers in government or elsewhere in public service, and wish to attend graduate school to prepare for their careers.

Nineteen independent selection panels chose the scholarship recipients on the basis of leadership potential, intellectual ability and the likelihood of “making a difference.” Each panel typically includes a university president, a federal judge, a distinguished public servant and a past Truman scholarship winner.

The 2005 Truman scholars will assemble Sunday, May 15, for a weeklong leadership development program at William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., and receive their awards in a special ceremony at the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., on Sunday, May 22.

For a complete listing of the 2005 scholars and more information on the Truman foundation, see http://www.truman.gov.