Iolani alum wins
envied scholarship
at OxfordThe Boston University senior
makes this list of Rhodes Scholars
A Boston University senior from Pearl City is among 32 American college students selected as Rhodes Scholars for 2004, it was announced yesterday.
Rick Malins, 21, will enter the University of Oxford in England in October, 100 years after the first class of American Rhodes Scholars did in 1904. It is an honor he never thought he would receive.
"I had convinced myself that there was no way I was going to win a scholarship," Malins, an Iolani School alumnus, said by phone from Los Angeles, where he was stopping on his way back to Boston from Hawaii.
The chemistry and neuroscience major wants to spend his time at Oxford on a research project studying Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and other degenerative disorders of the brain that come with age.
As a Beckman Scholar, Malins presented his research on Alzheimer's disease at a National Academy of Sciences conference, according to the Rhodes Scholarship Trust.
"What I am really interested in is the human brain, how it functions," Malins said.
Malins is the second of four children in a military family that was stationed in San Diego, Charleston, S.C., Washington and New London, Conn., before coming to Hawaii in 1995. His father, Chet, is a retired Navy captain, and his mother, Chris, is an assistant principal at Holy Family Academy.
"We're just really proud of him," said Chet Malins.
Malins has directed, designed, managed or acted in 25 productions while in college, and he played the viola for the Boston University orchestra, according to Rhodes officials. He has also tutored and coached disadvantaged children.
Chet Malins describes his son as perseverant and independent.
"If we would have told him to do this, he would have done something entirely different," Chet Malins said. "But he wanted this."
Malins joins a diverse group of Rhodes classmates, including a female former wing commander who led 4,000 cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy, a political science major who has worked with refugees in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and a national Frisbee champion who was a contributing scientist on a NASA Mars mission.
The group was selected from 963 applicants endorsed by 366 colleges and universities. The scholarships provide two or three years of study at Oxford.
Rhodes Scholarships were created in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes. Winners are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes.
The American students will join an international group of scholars selected from 18 other nations around the world. Approximately 95 scholars are selected annually.
With the elections announced yesterday, 3,014 Americans have won Rhodes Scholarships, representing 306 colleges and universities.
Chet Malins said it will be hard to know his son is a world away in England, but he is confident he will do well.
"He'll thrive," the father said.
