Five U. students honored as nation's 'best and brightest'

Mark Baker had been holding his breath for a long time. Last Friday, his dream came true, when he and four other University students were listed in USA Today as representatives of the "Best and the Brightest" college students in America. Baker, who was given an honorable mention award by the newspaper, said he was very excited about the recognition he received. "It's a big honor," the College senior said. "It's truly an incredible feeling." According to the newspaper, 20 students were selected to the All-USA Academic First, Second and Third teams and 73 students earned honorable mention out of a total field of 1,342 nominees. Judges chose winners for their blend of scholarship, initiative, leadership and creativity. Baker said he feels he was selected as an honorable mention for the original screenplay he wrote, which was entitled "A Dream Deferred." "More than the screenplay, it was the content of the screenplay that I felt would make me stand out from the rest of the crowd," Baker said. "It is about how our potential black leaders, like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, are killed before they have the chance to grow up into the great black leaders that they could be." Baker said he forwarded his screenplay to Spike Lee's production company, Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, and is awaiting a response. Wharton senior Lisa Chen earned the University's highest honor, landing a spot on the Second Team. Chen, who was named last semester as one of Glamour magazine's top 10 college women, studied the effects of pollution on Hawaiian monk seals and tutored Philadelphia prisoners, while maintaining a 3.6 GPA. "While the USA Today [award] was nice recognition, the Glamour award was a little more special because they invited us to New York City and we were recognized through the press and the media," Chen said. She added that it was interesting for her to look at the students who made the first team and the opportunities they had. Among the members of the All-USA College Academic Team was a mother from Kansas who organized classroom activities for autistic students and a 50-year-old man from New York who was homeless for three years and tells stories of his homelessness. College Junior Mark Liberman and Wharton MBA student Ryan Limaye were on USA Today's third team. Limaye, who finished the University's Managment and Technology program in two and a half years, said it was not such a great honor to be recognized by the newspaper. "I'm very happy to be recognized at a national level for my achievements, but it doesn't mean a whole lot to me," Limaye said. "I'm more interested in doing well here and doing well in the job search." Limaye said he realized that he had been selected when he glanced through the newspaper on Friday in between summer job interviews and said he "didn't lose any sleep" over the honor. "It was the lowest thing on my list of priorities," he said. Liberman, who could not be reached for comment, developed a computer service course for the U.S. Foreign Service on the use of the telephone in French. He is also a "big brother" to newly arrived Russian emigres. Wharton and Engineering junior Ashish Rughwani also garnered an honorable mention in the competition. Rughwani spent a summer working at NASA in Washington building a satellite that will be launched later this year and started a international embassador lecture series at the University. He said the competition's message is what is important. "It gives you a little motivation," Rughwani said. "It's a way of telling college students that society values academic talent."