From a small pool of applicants and an even smaller pool of nominees, the Barry Scholarship Foundation has been awarded its prestigious scholarship to senior and physics major David Forman. The scholarship would pay for all of his master’s program expenses, should he be accepted into Oxford University in the spring.
“His reputation preceded him,” Professor of Ancient History Kenneth Calvert said.
Calvert led the Barry scholarship effort this year.
“The winners of these grants in previous years were people like David, being excellent across a number of fields,” he said.
The Barry Scholarship is a prestigious award from the Canterbury Institute that honors American students who are at a level of accomplishment that would be acceptable for Oxford University, according to Calvert.
College President Larry Arnn was invited to nominate two Hillsdale students out of 11 applicants for the consideration of the Barry committee, which was made up of professors from Oxford, Princeton University, and the University of California at Berkeley. For his application, Forman was asked to send in an example of his best work and an essay on an unpopular opinion he held.
“What we were looking for among these applicants was great academic credentials, intellectual firepower, but also a breadth of interest and understanding,” Calvert said. “In my mind, I’m really looking for a renaissance person across the fields, and what I really loved about David Forman’s application is that he’s a man who does very well across academic fields, has a deep interest in computers and such things as artificial intelligence, but also he’s a violist — a very good musician — so he’s kind of that renaissance person across the fields.”
Assistant Professor of Theology Jordan Wales said he admires Forman’s range of experience and level of self-awareness. He noted that Forman has great “potential…to be shaped by the experience and to continue to be broadened and deepened as a person and as a thinker.”
“He’s a well-formed person, but he’s also a wonderfully malleable kind of person, not malleable in a historical way but just ready to receive further impressions,” Wales said. “One has to come to know oneself in a new way and present oneself in a certain way, becoming aware of one’s strengths and weaknesses. And David did it very well.”
Forman has spent the last four years working toward a physics major, playing viola in orchestra, and spending summers doing research in computer science, including machine learning with the University of California at San Diego. His physics major was “great preparation for computer science” but also a “detour,” Forman said.
“Learning special relativity, learning quantum mechanics, isn’t going to help you write the next best algorithm that’s going to help with efficient package delivery,” Forman said. “It’s not the same thing, and so I’ve found that fascinating; fun to work with.”
Forman said he has put in an application to Oxford, where he hopes to work with Philip Torr, a professor and researcher in robotics engineering, and intends to pursue a doctorate in computer science with him.
“I would be glad to be there and be amongst those ideas in computer science, amongst those researchers,” Forman said. “It’s also personally wonderful to be in a very different place where people think differently and experience everything the same and yet different. We have a close enough culture to be able to talk and a far enough culture to be able to really disagree and understand new things.”
Forman said he “loves the community of Hillsdale” and has had an “amazing” four years, and he is thankful to be part of the experience.
“I feel grateful for the whole experience leading up to this and now – wow! – getting it,” he said. “I’m excited, not only to have a masters paid for, but also the community of the Canterbury Institute. For them to accept me with the unpopular opinion that I wrote makes me want to be with these people and get to talk to them.”
Calvert said he would like to see Forman become an “important leader academically, intellectually,” and he encourages other students interested in these kinds of goals to look into the Oxford program that the college offers and to apply themselves to their experiences in Hillsdale.
“Eat up everything that the professors here have to offer them,” Calvert said. “This is a magnificent college for jumping off into Oxford or all kinds of graduate studies.”
Wales agreed, saying students should look to apply to similar programs such as the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.
“Hillsdale students, with their love of wisdom and their desire for a kind of integrated and transformative liberal learning, are just the sort of students who should be thinking about these scholarships,” he said.
