The University now can boast that it has not one but two Truman scholars in its midst.
Third-year College student Andy Oldham, a Jefferson and Echols Scholar from Lynchburg, is the second University student this year to receive the $30,000 scholarship for students planning careers in government and public service.
Oldham was told he received the scholarship after an interview in Washington, D.C., Monday where he said he met remarkable students from across the country, including two from the territory of Guam.
As he walked into his room with his bag still on his back, he heard the phone ring. It was University President John T. Casteen III calling to tell him the good news - just six hours after the interview, he recounted excitedly.
Now enrolled in the government honors program with a double major in economics, Oldham said he hopes to use the money to study at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University to obtain a Ph.D. in government and social policy along with a J.D. in law.
Oldham's achievements at the University include co-founding the all-male sexual assault peer education group, One in Four, serving as the editor of Hoo Knows, one of the University's political journals, and serving as a Resident Advisor in Webb House.
But he is humble about his contributions to the University.
"I am boring," he said.
As both a University Guide and a member of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, Oldham noted that while he attended the Restoration Ball Saturday night, he had to "take it easy on that champagne ... I had to go up to Washington early Sunday morning for the interview."
This summer, Oldham hopes to work two jobs in Washington, D.C.: one with the State Department and one with the Brookings Institute studying antitrust law in telecommunications.
He is exuberant about his previous summers in Washington, when he worked on Capitol Hill as a speechwriter for California Congressman Wally Herger and studied at Georgetown University.
Eventually, with his dual graduate degree, Oldham wants to work in Washington to address many issues of social public policy, including sexual assault, education and welfare.
Oldham "continues the tradition in the government honors program of Rhodes, Truman and other scholars programs ... the honors program is well represented in the scholarship elite," said Larry J. Sabato, government and foreign affairs professor.
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