November 13, 2009: News & Views

Meet OWU’s Rhodes Scholars
Four Bishops have earned prestigious fellowship

If David Gatz ’10 is named as a 2009 Rhodes Scholar (see related story), he will join four other Ohio Wesleyan students in achieving this prestigious, international honor.

The Rhodes Scholarships were founded in 1902, with the first American scholars entering the University of Oxford in 1904. Ohio Wesleyan’s first Rhodes Scholar was named a mere year later. Meet OWU’s Rhodes Scholars:

Edwin Russell Lloyd, Class of 1905 According to Transcript archives, Lloyd represented his home state of West Virginia in the Rhodes Scholar competition. In addition to his OWU degree, Lloyd earned a bachelor’s degree from Oxford in 1908, and worked for many years with the U.S. Geological Survey. He also worked as a geologist with several large oil firms and as a freelance consulting geologist.

Edmund Earl Lincoln, Class of 1909 According to Transcript and Mowry Alumni Center archives, Lincoln was the 311th person in the nation to be named as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned a master’s degree from Oxford and his doctorate from Harvard University. During his career, Lincoln worked as an economist for Western Electric Company, the International Telephone & Telegraph Company, and Du Pont. He also served as a faculty member at Mount Union College in Ohio, St. John’s College in Maryland, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Business Administration.

Robert Aura Smith, Class of 1920 According to OWU records, Smith was the nation’s 1004th Rhodes Scholar. The Delaware, Ohio, native served in World War I before entering Ohio Wesleyan. In addition to his OWU degree, he earned a bachelor’s degree at Oxford, working as an English professor at Evansville College in Indiana after completing his Rhodes Scholarship. After a year with the college, he joined the reporting staff at the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune. Smith’s journalism career flourished, and he went on to work in Manchuria and the Philippines during the late 1920s and ‘30s as a correspondent for both The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times. Additional writings included Your Foreign Policy: How, What and Why (1940); Our Future in Asia (1940); Divided India (1947); and Philippine Freedom, 1946-1958 (1958). Smith also served as director of the U.S. Foreign Information Service in the Far East.

Bill McCulloh, Class of 1953 McCulloh graduated from Ohio Wesleyan with majors in English, German and music. After completing his Rhodes Scholarship, he earned his doctorate at Yale University. The Worthington, Ohio, native worked as a classics professor at Kenyon College in Ohio for 33 years, retiring in June 1999. According to Kenyon, McCulloh’s many awards included the American Philological Association’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 1985, the Sears-Roebuck Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1991, the Ohio Professor of the Year Award from the Carnegie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching in 1995, and the College’s Trustee Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1997. In 1998, he was honored as Kenyon’s first incumbent of the John B. McCoy-Bank One Distinguished Teaching Professorship.

– Cole Hatcher