For the first time in 11 years, a UW-Madison student earned a Rhodes scholarship.
UW-Madison senior Alexis Brown was announced Saturday as one of 32 recipients of the prestigious award, which will grant her two to three years of study at Oxford University.
Brown, an English major from Algonquin, Ill., received the award for outstanding work in the classroom and the community.
“We congratulate Alexis on winning the most prestigious of all higher education honors,” Chancellor David Ward said in a statement.
“In her, we see the makings of a gifted scholar who will be an effective voice for the humanities within academia and beyond.”
Her community involvement includes working as a peer tutor as well as a poetry reviewer, copy editor and associate editor for The Madison Review, a literary arts journal.
Brown is also the founder and editor-in-chief for The Madison Journal of Literary Criticism, a journal that offers literature students a space to publish their scholarly work and engage in contemporary literary debate.
Brown joins a list of past honorees including former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold.