A 2007 Duke University graduate who created a program in which college athletes go to rural communities in developing countries to work with middle school-aged children was named one of 32 Rhodes Scholars this weekend.
Julia Parker Goyer, a 23-year-old native of Birmingham, Ala., was chosen from among 769 applicants at 207 colleges and universities throughout the country. She is the 42nd Rhodes Scholar from Duke, including 21 in the past 15 years, and will study international comparative education at the University of Oxford in England.
"Duke is proud of the outstanding talent of our students, and we are especially proud when one is honored in this way," said Duke President Richard H. Brodhead. "Parker Goyer has been a top student-athlete and a pioneer in global service learning. It's wonderfully fitting that she has been chosen for a Rhodes." Goyer, a varsity tennis player while at Duke, said she hopes to build on a program she started called "Coach for College," which sent to rural Vietnam this past summer 20 varsity athletes -- - 10 from Duke and 10 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During a pair of three-week sessions, the athletes conducted sports clinics and, working with Vietnamese high school and college students, taught academic subjects to the younger students.
The program's primary goal is to utilize sports to help middle school students in rural communities develop academic and life skills needed to successfully attend a college or university.
Goyer, a Robertson Fellow in the year following her May 2007 graduation from Duke, came up with the idea of Coach for College following trips to Belize and Vietnam in the summer of 2007, where she saw a lack of role models and of sports and education infrastructure for youth in rural communities.
The Robertson Scholars program each year provides full tuition and other benefits, including summer opportunities, for about 36 students from Duke and UNC. The program not only recognizes merit but also aims to promote a sense of community between the traditional campus rivals and instill a spirit of community service. Recently, it also has created a fellowship program for recent graduates.
In January, Goyer brought the Coach for College idea to Duke administrators and received strong encouragement -- and $130,000 in monetary support -- from the provost's office, the office of the dean of undergraduate education and the athletics department. Various offices at UNC contributed another $68,000, and the NCAA contributed $10,000 more.
Goyer hopes to expand the initiative to include student-athletes from other American universities and programs in other foreign countries. She recently received a $175,000 grant from the U.S. State Department and renewed support from the two universities to continue the program in Vietnam in 2009. Coach for College is now administered by the Duke Center for Civic Engagement. In an earlier interview with Duke Magazine, Goyer said of Coach for College: "The biggest idea is that student-athletes have great traits they develop through sports - -- the ability to persevere, work hard, set goals, manage their time, focus and collaborate with others - -- which have enabled them to become high-level varsity athletes. But they don't always apply these traits which they perfect on the playing field in other settings. I want American student-athletes to realize that, by virtue of being highly skilled sports players in some of the best higher education institutions in the world, they have tremendous power to make a difference."
Goyer, who majored in psychology with a concentration in neuroscience at Duke, is now enrolled in the doctoral program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she is exploring ways to use neuroscience to enhance educational practices. She will take a leave of absence to pursue a master's of science degree in comparative and international education at Oxford.
"I'm hoping to learn more about the personnel, the educational systems and curricula of different countries in which we might implement the Coach for College program, in order to further enhance its impact," she said Sunday.
Goyer said she has already received a number of congratulatory phone calls and e-mails from students at Duke and UNC, from past Rhodes Scholars and from Duke officials, including Provost Peter Lange, whom she calls a mentor.
Rhodes Scholarships, created in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes, provide two or three years of study at Oxford University in England. Recipients are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes.
The value of the Rhodes Scholarship varies depending on the academic field, the degree (B.A., master's, doctoral) and the Oxford college chosen. The Rhodes Trust pays all college and university fees, provides a stipend to cover necessary expenses while in residence in Oxford and during vacations, and transportation to and from England.
One other North Carolina student was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship this year - -- Aisha Saad of UNC-Chapel Hill. A complete list of this year's recipients is online at http://www.rhodesscholar.org.