Six Harvard Students Win Rhodes

Harvard University students won more Rhodes Scholarships than students from any other university once again this year, taking home six of the 32 scholarships announced yesterday.

Crimson editors alone tied with the number of winners from Yale University, with John A. Cloud '93 and Gina M. Raimondo '93 each winning a prize.

Harvard honorees include Cloud, from Little Rock, Arkansas; Alison Morantz '93, from Kansas City, Missouri; Stephen L. Morgan '93, from Shaker Heights, Ohio; Raimondo, from Greenville, Rhode Island; Faith C. Salie '93, from Atlanta, Georgia; and Janice R. Ugaki, a Harvard law student from Blackfoot, Idaho.

The students faced interrogations from their district committees on Saturday, fielding questions such as, "What's a well-tempered clavier?" "What would you do as ambassador to Nicaragua?" and "If I told you there were a million pink elephants under your chair, how would you prove me wrong?"

The competitors were divided by region into eight groups of 12 and interviewed individually. They then waited together in a room for several hours until the judges emerged to announce the district winners.

"It's surprisingly cordial while you're waiting," said Alison Morantz, a social studies concentrator. "You're all in it together."

"But that camaraderie immediately shatters when they announce the four winners," Morantz said.

Rhodes winner Faith C. Salie said she was the last in her group to be named.

"I really did think I blew it," she said. "They gave us a little spiel beforehand about how we were all winners. I was trying to take it to heart."

Salie said she had worried that her interviewer "wasn't too pleased" with her answer to the question about pink elephants. "I told him we'd talk about why he thought there were pink elephants under my chair," she said.

But Salie, who wants to be an actor, said she believes her delivery of a schizophrenic woman monologue redeemed her.

Sociology concentrator Stephen L. Morgan said that to win a Rhodes Scholarship,"You have to show you're different."

His advice to future Rhodes applicants: "Knowthyself, wear nice clothes and have a strategy.Make yourself a package."

Morantz, however, offered a differentperspective on how to win the Rhodes. "I reallyfelt that I presented myself, rather than animage. I think that element of spontaneityhelped," she said.

Morantz said that there were several "wanna-beClintons" in her district and state groups, who"walked around shaking hands with a pin in theirlapel."

"They didn't win," Morantz said.

According to official Rhodes Scholarshipguidelines, the criteria for winning thescholarship are intellectual and academicachievement, integrity and the energy to use thosetalents to the fullest, and participation andsuccess in sports.

But John Cloud, who follows in the footsteps ofPresident-elect Bill Clinton as a Rhodes Scholarfrom Arkansas, sees himself as living proof thatathletic achievement is not essential.

"I took a non-credit squash course my freshmanyear and played a little intramural racquetball,"Cloud said.

Athletic star or not, Cloud's friends inWinthrop House responded to his success withgleeful energy.

Within hours of the news of his selection,brightly colored signs covered the walls ofWinthrop House, urging residents to visit "RoomC-33"--Cloud's suite--if they needed "someone totalk to."

Parodying the omnipresent Room 13 posters, thesigns featured imaginary quotes from students withcomplaints such as, "I've never gone to a formalwith a Rhodes Scholar," and "Bill Clinton is theonly Rhodes Scholar I know from Arkansas.