Penn students have received several competitive awards recently, making this year the University's most successful for winning prestigious international fellowships.
In addition to the Rhodes and Marshall scholars announced last fall, Penn now has two Truman scholars, making this the first year in which Penn has ever had a Rhodes, Marshall and Truman scholar in the same year.
All four Goldwater Scholarship applicants this year won -- the second time all four Penn nominees have been successful.
Only four students are permitted to apply for the Goldwater from a four-year institution.
And one student won a Carnegie Endowment, becoming one of seven Carnegie junior fellows chosen from among 285 nominees across the nation.
Out of the four students nominated for the award by officials at the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, College juniors Kate Liberman Kimberly Hsu won the Truman scholarship. Hsu is a former production manager of The Daily Pennsylvanian. All four Penn candidates made it to the finals.
Only two other schools -- Swarthmore and Occidental -- had all four nominees make it to the finals this year.
The Truman award is a $26,000 scholarship given to about 75 college juniors each year to be used for senior-year tuition and graduate study in public service-oriented fields.
Liberman, who is involved in several theater groups on campus, said she plans to go into a graduate program "geared towards arts management [and to] teach civic engagement and participation."
She also takes part in an afterschool program teaching children from a local elementary school about the performing arts.
Hsu is currently traveling abroad and was not available for comment.
The four Goldwater scholarship winners were College junior Tara Kaufmann, Engineering sophomore Jonathan Singer, College sophomore Paul Scherer and College junior Judy Liu. The one- and two-year scholarships cover costs related to college, up to $7,500 per year.
All four Goldwater winners are engaged in scientific research.
Carnegie Endowment winner and College senior Michael Grosack will be working as the sole research assistant next year for Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers, scholars at the Democracy and Rule of Law Project in Washington.
Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships Director Arthur Casciato said this year has far surpassed any Penn has had in terms of awards won.
"The trick was not only to get more qualified students to apply but also to convince them that they belonged in the competitions and could win them. The rest took care of itself," he said.
He said that the number of applicants handled by CURF -- which was started in 2000 -- has expanded exponentially since its advent.
"Penn already had the kinds of students who could be competitive and the kind of faculty that could teach their students," Casciato said. "It was a matter of ... convincing qualified students to give these competitions a try."
