THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605110285
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY BETH BUDNYK, CAMPUS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Both seniors are award-winning scientists with wide-ranging interests: She has taught school in rural Kenya. He is a published poet.
And both students from the College of William and Mary recently won national recognition.
Bridget Harrison, a physics major from St. Louis, Mo., was named to USA Today's seventh annual All-USA College Academic Team in February. David Wilmouth, a chemistry major from Keysville, Va., was selected for the third team. Harrison received a $2,500 prize for the honor.
Each team includes 20 students from colleges across the country who have shown outstanding intellectual achievement and leadership.
``If you look at the frequency with which any university has more than one person on the teams, it's not that great,'' said W. Samuel Sadler, the college's vice president for student affairs. ``It really does say something about the quality of student we have here.''
Sadler said Harrison and Wilmouth, who will both graduate Sunday, ``are very versatile people who have stretched their talents in many ways. These are people with a sense of obligation to give something back to the world.''
Harrison has already made her mark: She taught math and physics to students at a rural Kenya high school during the summer of 1994.
``This was my first teaching experience,'' she said. ``It gave me an absolute belief and confidence that every student is capable of learning.''
Harrison also learned a few things. Staying with a local family, ``I learned to milk a cow, carry pails of water on my head and harvest maize.''
Kenya hasn't been her only stop outside the United States. She has researched women and religion in Southeast Asia, and she studied at Exeter University in England.
``Most of all, I learned that Britain and the United States aren't as similar as I assumed they were,'' Harrison said. ``Each dorm had a pub. Alcohol consumption was an integral part of British daily life. That was something I had to adapt to.''
Harrison's interest in international justice led her to serve as president of William and Mary's chapter of Amnesty International during her sophomore year. The group's activities include writing letters to foreign governments accused of injustices and raising awareness on campus. She is also a co-founder of the Feminist Student Organization, which brought Katie Koestner, the former student who complained of date rape on campus, last month.
She has applied to teach high school physics with the Teach for America program, which places teachers in urban areas. She is also considering joining the Peace Corps before beginning medical school.
Harrison attributes her passion for service to her parents: ``They raised me to be compassionate and concerned about others and to stand up for my beliefs. They didn't just say it; they lived it.''
Eventually, Harrison would like to serve as a general practitioner, incorporating alternative medicine - which she got interested in while reading a friend's thesis on homeopathy - with traditional practices.
Wilmouth's passion, aside from science, is poetry.
His poems were first published in anthologies of the National Library of Poetry during his senior year in high school, and he received the Editor's Choice award in the North American Open Poetry contest in 1994 and 1995.
But he doesn't like to talk much about his work: ``I just start writing and let the poem write itself. I don't start with a particular idea in mind.''
At William and Mary, he has also played in intramural sports and served as president of the Baptist Student Union. ``There are a lot of scientists who don't know where religious people are coming from, and there are a lot of religious people who don't know where scientists are coming from,'' he said. ``I feel like I know both sides. I don't see the conflict.''
He spent last summer studying ``polymer degradation'' at NASA-Langley. ``One of the chief goals of NASA is to develop a permanent space station, and in different components of a space station, polymer degradation is a key problem.''
As the top student in the chemistry department, Wilmouth will serve as one of three honorary marshals during Sunday's commencement exercises, so he will march in front of the graduating class.
Wilmouth, who will attend Harvard University to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry, grew up on a beef cattle farm in central Virginia, where he says he got his knack for juggling activities. ``Even though it seems like a lot of what I do involves sitting down and studying, I like being active,'' Wilmouth said. ``I grew up on a farm and enjoy farm work. A lot of what I do is just spending time with other people.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
CANDICE C. CUSIC/The Virginian-Pilot
David Wilmouth, a chemistry major, and Bridget Harrison, a physics
major, will graduate from the college on Sunday.
by CNB