This year, senior Eleanor Gardner, a political science and philosophy major from Bermuda, received the Rhodes Scholarship.
Won only by a select group of students each year since its inception in 1902, the scholarship allows graduating seniors to study under a graduate program of their choice at the University of Oxford for two to three years. Once obtained, the awardee must apply separately to the college of their choice. The scholarship accepts around 80 students annually, and only one student from Bermuda. Gardner spoke to The News-Letter about her time at Hopkins and how her experiences led her to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship.
Gardner was born in Bermuda, a British territory, to an architect and textile designer, and grew up with an older sister who first came to the U.S. to attend Tufts University.
Gardner came to Hopkins to detach herself from the British higher education system, which she found far too focused on professional goals and did not allow the academic freedom that she sought.
She cited the independence of the Hopkins curriculum, its academic excellence, and the high caliber of its swimming program as the trifecta she desired.
During Gardner’s freshman year, she had plans to pursue the International Studies major — one of the most popular and populated courses of study at Hopkins — but discovered that her true interests lay in a combination between political science and philosophy. She cited philosophy as adding a “unique depth” to her political science studies, and gave her a lens through which to understand them.
In addition to her core studies, Gardner found that the electives she chose shaped her outlook on her academic focus and the communities around her.
A photography course on racial politics forced her to leave the comforts of Homewood and venture into the surrounding neighborhoods in order to document and comment on the racial tensions that are still tangible in Baltimore.
She found the seeds of her senior thesis and scholarship application in the people she met and situations she observed while photographing in Hampden.
Inspired by the people she met in the Baltimore area and the articles she read on local racial violence as recent as the 1980s, Eleanor invested more of her time on the subject, noting that the classes she enrolled in each semester formed an ideological or topical continuum, both advancing and challenging her ideas.
She took classes with Professor Lester Spence, who teaches courses concerning racial politics, and who later became the advisor for her senior thesis.
Energized by her classes and experiences at home and in Baltimore, Eleanor decided to research how racial constructs are produced and propagated in Bermuda for her thesis, which in turn sparked her application for the Rhodes scholarship.
However, Cecil Rhodes had much stricter criteria in mind for the students who would earn his money besides a high GPA. Firstly, they must be scholastically outstanding. Secondly, they must excel in their chosen athletic sport, and lastly, they must be selfless towards their communities and show kindness and interest in the rest of the world.
Gardner’s achievements are certainly not limited to the halls of Hopkins. She is the captain of the girl’s varsity swimming team and said that sports, specifically swimming and sailing, allowed her to be social with her fellow Bermudans and learn about lifestyles and stories that she had not been previously exposed to.
She has also been very active in the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS), of which she was associate director during her sophomore year and executive director during her junior year.
“FAS was a good thing to be involved in because it provided a social atmosphere for something more important,” she said, citing the application of political theory into a real world setting.
Gardner has no shortage of real world experiences and devoted each summer to furthering her professional goals. During her freshman year, she returned to Bermuda and interned in the trust department of a local bank. For her sophomore year, she studied abroad in Switzerland and was able for the last 2 weeks to work on an independent project, utilizing the UN library’s resources for her studies. “[I discovered what a nexus Geneva is for global interaction,” she said.
In other summers, she collaborated with admissions advisors to work towards developing Hopkins’s humanities program, which is obviously less showcased than its science and math siblings.
Despite her travels and interest in global affairs, Gardner focused her Rhodes application on her birthplace. She wrote her personal essay (one of the many elements of the scholarship application), on her studies at Hopkins, her swimming and sailing and her summer internships. “[I was able to] expand my community and put my Bermudan identity in a social context.”
Once at Oxford, Gardner plans to pursue either a masters of philosophy in politics and theory or a masters of science in global government and diplomacy.
