The Burlington Free Press (Vermont), November 21, 2006, Tuesday

Copyright 2006 The Burlington Free Press (Burlington, VT)
All Rights Reserved
The Burlington Free Press (Vermont)

November 21, 2006 Tuesday
01 Edition

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A

HEADLINE: All Rhodes lead to Vermont

BYLINE: Nancy Remsen Contact Nancy Remsen at 651-4888 or nremsen@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com

BODY:
Only 32 Rhodes scholarships are awarded each year, and two this year have gone to graduates of high schools in South Burlington.
R. Genevieve Quist, 22, a 2001 graduate of Rice Memorial High School and a 2005 graduate of Cornell University, learned Saturday night she had been selected for one of the coveted scholarships that pays for two years of study at the University of Oxford in England. She's the third recipient this year with close Vermont ties.
Maria Repnikova, a 2001 graduate of South Burlington High School with a degree from Georgetown University, also learned Saturday she would be an American Rhodes Scholar. Jamila Headley, a St. Michael's College senior from Barbados, learned last week she, too, had been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.
Quist grew up in Vermont and now lives in Santa Monica, Calif., teaching sixth grade at a Los Angeles middle school in the Teach for America program. Teach for America places recent college graduates into the classrooms of some of the country's most disadvantaged schools. Quist's two-year commitment to Teach for America ends in June and her studies at Oxford will begin next fall. She plans to pursue a master's degree in comparative social policy.
Quist has a deep interest in helping the disadvantaged in this country and abroad that developed during her days at Rice High School, said her father, Peter Quist of Williston. She was among a group of Rice students who traveled to Peru on a church construction mission and there she first saw "serious poverty," her father said.
During her college years, she studied historical social policy, researched contemporary childhood poverty and wrote her thesis on the impact of welfare reform on single parent families.
Quist said her field research with families cemented her passion to fight poverty. "The conditions that a lot of these families existed in were shocking and appalling," she said Monday during a break from teaching. "I wondered why these conditions had to exist in the richest country in the world."
She pursued a Rhodes Scholarship, she said, because the University of Oxford has a center focused on research of the socially disadvantaged. "Many of the professors there are leading scholars on poverty."
She also was a summer volunteer at the Rape Crisis Center in Burlington, where she counseled survivors of sexual abuse.
Quist became involved in the Teach for America program as campus campaign coordinator before graduating from Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Now, in addition to teaching, she also is a learning team leader and resource room coordinator. This past winter, Quist connected at-risk children with a snowboarding and character-building program sponsored by Burton Snowboards.
"Genevieve was one of the most dynamic and brightest students I had at Cornell," said Jefferson Cowie, an assistant professor of labor history. "I have no doubt that her experience at Oxford will add an international dimension to her work focused on social equality in the U.S."
Contact Nancy Remsen at 651-4888 or nremsen@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com