THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 2, 1997 TAG: 9701020054
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: 129 lines
In eighth grade, Hans Ackerman was denied entry into the Newport News talented and gifted program.
He swallowed his disappointment and pushed on with his studies.
Eight years later, he's gotten into a far more exclusive academic society.
Ackerman, a 21-year-old senior at the College of William and Mary, found out last month that he was one of 32 U.S. students selected for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University in England. Ackerman is the third Rhodes scholar in William and Mary's history.
Ackerman, who is majoring in interdisciplinary studies combining biology and chemistry, has a 3.8 average. He dreams of helping rid the world of malaria. He loves singing madrigals, spent most of his childhood in Africa, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro last year.
But Ackerman said none of these facets best captures him. This is what really matters: ``At William and Mary, I had the idea that people always count first. If a friend needed someone to talk to, I would do that before I worked on a project. . . .
``I realized that academic deadlines really are not all that important. People are what are important.''
That's the Hans that Michelle Kang, a school friend who was crowned Miss Virginia this year, knows. ``He will always put other people before himself and always will drop anything to help a friend,'' she said. ``I think he sleeps very little because of his commitment to others.''
Said Ackerman's mother, Susan, a French teacher: ``There are a million 4.0 averages. It's definitely more than the sum total of intellect. There's something in his spirit - he's open and thoughtful and fun. When he comes into a room, he can just make people smile.''
Relaxing with his family the day after Christmas in the 80-year-old farmhouse his great-grandfather built, Ackerman eagerly talked about his plans for Oxford and his senior research project studying the formation of proteins in trout. But just as easily, he left the spotlight, joining in his parents' reminiscences about Africa, looking over shoe boxes of old snapshots.
At the end, Susan turned to him and said: ``You were never nerdy at all.''
Hans Ackerman was born in Newport News in 1975, but moved with his family to Zaire when he was 4. His father, Robby, now a vice president of a home-construction company, was helping improve agricultural production.
They lived in a ranch-style house; Hans rode his bike a lot, but he remembers eating an awful lot of rice. And unlike most kids, his teacher was his mother.
Ironically, she skimped on the sciences. He and his sisters performed plays such as ``The King's Tea.'' His 24-year-old sister, Ilse (``she's the smart one,'' Hans said), recalled him squirming in his seat when he had to write a composition. ``It's funny to find him being such a successful academic,'' said Ilse, a graduate student at Cornell University.
He liked the more active type of learning, sharing conversations with Peace Corps volunteers, padding along with visiting scientists. He recalled following one entomologist searching for insects.
``You learn more when you see what people do,'' Ackerman said. ``It's more fun than being in a classroom and pulling out a book about famous scientists.''
Later, he taught himself Morse code. He joined the relatively small set of ham radio operators in Zaire. He loved building antennae.
``I learned that I could teach myself a lot of things,'' he said. ``. . .I didn't have to wait for the teacher. That's really how you have to work when you get to college.''
The Ackermans returned to Virginia in 1983, but went back to Africa, this time Mauritania, in 1985. Three years later, they returned to Newport News to stay.
Ackerman went to Carver Middle School and Menchville High School. He planned to go to a college that focused on sciences. But after attending the Governor's School for Sciences at William and Mary the summer after his junior year, he knew that was the place for him.
The professors were ``so accessible, so approachable. If you were interested in what they were doing, they would spend their lunch break with you.''
Ackerman isn't brash about his accomplishments, but he is painfully honest, especially when it comes to his sometimes unorthodox views on education.
Recently, he was among a handful of W&M students and professors who spoke to the State Council of Higher Education. When state officials asked about tougher core-curriculum requirements that schools such as William and Mary were adopting, Ackerman told them what they didn't want to hear: It wasn't such a great idea. Students will learn more if they're given more flexibility.
``Each person has different interests,'' he said last week. ``You learn things you're interested in. If you're forced to take Western European history and don't want to take it, you're going to reject that knowledge.''
Another of his beliefs: Grades really shouldn't count that much. He says he was glad to get a few B's the second semester of his freshman year to avoid the struggle for a perfect record.
``Too many people focus on grades,'' he said. ``They think, `If I have a 3.9, I'll be able to get a job.' They miss out on learning.''
In his junior year, he admitted, ``classes took a back seat. I did what was necessary.'' The reason was his heavy campus involvement with an all-male a cappella group, the Gentlemen of the College. It took up 20 hours a week between rehearsing, performing and scheduling concerts, which was his job as business manager.
He also sings tenor with the Early Music Ensemble, which performs works dating to the 1400s. ``Most of that music has a simple type of beauty,'' he said.
The truth, Ackerman said, is that ``I really have a love for music that I don't have for science. Just out of sheer enjoyment, I'd rather study music. But I don't see how I could make the same contribution to the world through music.''
This summer, he went to Kenya, volunteering with a consortium of AIDS organizations. He wrote a paper on the dilemmas of orphans of AIDS, which was read at an international AIDS conference in Canada.
His goal, however, is to eradicate another disease, malaria - which he and the rest of his family contracted when they were in Africa. Ackerman said there are 400 million cases, often in children, and 4 million deaths a year.
``People have been dying for centuries,'' he said. ``We might see it as a curse for traveling. . . . But (elsewhere), they're continually being challenged by the malarial parasite.''
During his three years at Oxford, he plans to study at the university's Centre for the Epidemiology of Infectious Disease. After that, he plans to continue zigzagging the globe: He'll come back to America for medical school, then return to Africa to work with patients (``I want to be there, where the problems exist''). And then, probably back to this country to teach and conduct research as a professor.
But through it all, he won't forget about the other parts of life.
Just as he didn't on Thanksgiving, when - in the midst of preparing for the Rhodes interviews and finishing med-school applications - he drove with his family to Ithaca, N.Y., to be with Ilse.
``He helped me in the kitchen,'' she said, ``he got all his applications out and he was able to entertain some of my friends at the house.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
William and Mary senior Hans Ackerman is one of 32 Rhodes scholars
from the U.S.
KEYWORDS: RHODES SCHOLAR WILLIAM & MARY