Sahner '07 named Rhodes Scholar

Christian Sahner '07, an art and archaeology major and a founder of the Anscombe Society, a socially conservative campus group, is the University's sole recipient of a 2007 Rhodes Scholarship, joining 31 other students from across the country.

"It was sweet disbelief," the Maplewood, N.J., native said in an interview yesterday. "I had a sensation of the heat when you're crying, but I wasn't crying. It was a state of shock and then confusion. I couldn't wrap my head around it."

This is the second consecutive year that only one Princetonian has received the scholarship. Thirteen of the country's 32 winners hail from Ivy League schools, including six from Harvard, four from Yale and one each from Brown, Cornell and Princeton.

Sahner was interviewed by a panel of seven in New York City on Saturday morning and was informed of the group's decision later that afternoon.

"I called my parents after we were debriefed and they answered on the speaker phone," he said. "They were screaming so much all I could hear was static on my end."

His mother, Brigid Casey, said that she and her husband waited nervously all day for a call from their son.

"He called at 4:30 and was very low-key. You think you can read someone you know so well by their voice and he was very quiet, so I thought it didn't work out," she said. "We were getting ready to say how proud we were of how far he had gone in the process when he just said, 'Mom, I won.' Then we felt like we could go crazy. It's a great day. He worked so hard and we're so honored."

While at Oxford, Sahner plans to study early Byzantine history, the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of Christianity and Islam, eventually earning a masters in philosophy. He also hopes to pick up "a few more" languages in addition to the five of which he has working knowledge.

"Oxford is one of the few places in the world, besides Princeton, to study late antiquity," Sahner said, explaining why he applied for the Rhodes. "I knew that Oxford had a terrific program and I thought I might have a shot."

Sahner said that his exposure to art in high school enabled him to narrow his focus once he arrived at the University.

"Some kids spent their two years here figuring out what they're interested in," he said. "But I had it figured out when I got here. I knew I was most interested in the Middle Ages. I had the opportunity to move from the conventional understanding of the Middle Ages to much earlier stuff and focus on the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of Islam."

Sahner hasn't limited himself to academic pursuits while at Princeton, however. He serves as editor-in-chief of the Princeton Tory, is an undergraduate ministry assistant with the Aquinas Institute — Princeton's official Roman Catholic chaplaincy — and helped found the Anscombe Society, a group that promotes abstinence before marriage.

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"A lot of us thought that there wasn't a conservative voice on campus speaking out about family, sexuality and marriage," Sahner said. "We try to fix the misunderstandings of where conservative people are coming from."

Emeritus English professor John Fleming GS '63, who taught Sahner on two occassions and wrote Sahner's official letter of endorsement, offered praise for the newly named Rhodes Scholar.

"He is a most remarkably advanced student of medieval culture for an undergradute," said Fleming, who was himself a 1958 Rhodes Scholar. "He's done an amazingly diverse amount of work and has won almost every grant you can get to study foreign language."

Fleming was quick to add that Sahner is much more than an excellent student.

"What is most remarkable about Christian is his extraordinary combination of acute academic ability with a genuine likability and intellectual humility," Fleming said. "He's the kind of person who lives up to the Princeton motto. He's animated by an ethical search for historical truth and that's very refreshing."

Approximately 1,500 students each year seek their institution's endorsement for the Rhodes. This year, the scholars were selected from 896 applicants endorsed by 340 different colleges and universities. With the elections announced Saturday, 3,110 Americans have won Rhodes Scholarships, representing 307 colleges and universities.

Last year, Jeff Miller '06 was the University's sole Rhodes Scholar. While no Princetonian received the honor in 2005, the Classes of 2003 and 2004 each had one recipient and the Class of 2002 boasted two. Sahner said he looks forward to following in their footsteps when he heads to England next October.

"I'm interested in seeing how religion and politics relate to each other in another country," he said. "Religiosity isn't as strong in England as it is in America, but there's still an institutionalized church. I'm also interested in thinking about my experiences in Anscombe and Aquinas and how they relate to what I find over there."