Shi ’11 wins Sachs Scholarship

The scholarship provides funding for one member of the graduating class to enroll in a two-year program at Oxford’s Worcester College, pending an official offer of admission. Shi hopes to enroll in a two-year master’s program in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature.

After receiving a text message Saturday night from a member of the scholarship selection committee asking her to come in Sunday morning for another meeting, Shi said she was expecting a second-round interview. Instead, she was informed that she had won the scholarship.

Shi said she was astonished to discover that she was the winner of the scholarship. “It was really humbling to think that they’d picked me, because I’m sure so many talented people applied,” she said.

“This year’s applicant pool was especially strong,” David Loevner ’76, the chair of the scholarship committee, said in an e-mail. Of the 31 students who applied, 12 were offered interviews, he added.

“Ronnie stood out for her remarkable academic achievements in her field, her engagement in the University community and with younger people, and the intensity of her commitment to using her gifts in the interests of our country and its citizens,” he said.

Shi said she eventually aspires to be a professor of classics at a university. “I also want to have both a voice in sparking an appreciation of classics and making classical education more available to students who wouldn’t normally be exposed to this field. I’d like to help form higher-education policies and be a voice for the humanities,” she said.

In her thesis work, advised by classics professor Denis Feeney, Shi is studying the transformation of epic poetry in ancient Greece and Rome, focusing on its evolution from myth into a political and cultural tool. She is also writing a libretto in Latin for a senior thesis opera production on the life of Nero.

“Ronnie is a phenomenally gifted Classicist, with great linguistic and critical gifts,” Feeney said in an e-mail. “She has an uncanny ability to understand what good scholarship in Classics consists of, and she has a tremendous ability to develop a fresh and original view on any question put before her.”

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In addition to her academic talent, “Ronnie is a joy to work with, always enthusiastic, innovative and resourceful,” Feeny added. “It has been a privilege to work with her.”

Classics professor Robert Kaster, who advised Shi for her junior independent work, also lauded her intellectual abilities.

“I’ve never taught an undergrad with more intellectual energy and reach than Ronnie Shi, and I can think of only two other students I’ve had in my 36 years of teaching whom I’d put in something like the same category,” he said in an e-mail.

“Ronnie’s grasp matches her reach; she is going to be a terrific scholar, and I’m just very happy for my field that she will be part of it,” added Kaster, who also taught Shi in three courses, including a graduate seminar.

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Outside of the classroom, Shi is a member of the search committee for the successor of Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel. Michael Weinberg ’11, the only other undergraduate on the committee, said in an e-mail that Shi “is extremely bright, [is] a rigorous thinker and is very knowledgeable about issues in higher education.”

A peer adviser in Mathey College, Shi is also on the USG Academics Committee and the Committee on Course of Study, which is responsible for recommending changes to the undergraduate curriculum. In addition, she belongs to the Behrman Undergraduate Society of Fellows, a 24-member council of undergraduates that meets monthly to discuss humanistic issues under the auspices of the Council of Humanities.

Shi also won the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence for work in her freshman and sophomore year and, most recently, the Class of 1939 Princeton Scholar Award, given to the student with the best academic record at the end of junior year. Shi is also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, a distinction awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to minority students who want to pursue Ph.D.s.

The Daniel M. Sachs Scholarship, established in 1970 by the Class of 1960, was created in memory of Daniel Sachs, who died of a tumor that began in his left knee at the age of 28. Sachs was a varsity football player and a Rhodes Scholar. The Sachs scholarship is awarded to the senior who best exemplifies Sachs’ character, intelligence and commitment, and whose work would be of the most value to the public.

The University’s official announcement is expected today.

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Veronica Shi ’11 is composing a libretto for her own senior thesis.