Rice Senior Receives Rhodes Scholarship

More than 900 American students applied for the Rhodes Scholarships—the oldest of the international study awards available to U.S. students—which provide for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England. Only 32 were selected, and one of them is Rice senior Noorain Khan.

Noorain Khan, right, with Elora Shehabuddin.

Khan will enter Oxford in October to pursue a master of philosophy degree in migration studies in the university’s Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology.

This degree will be an extension of Khan’s studies at Rice, where she is majoring in political science, women and gender studies, and religious studies. She is writing her senior thesis on issues relating to the veiling of young Muslim women in Houston. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, she is researching Pakistani American immigrants’ attitudes toward veiling before and after they moved to Houston from Karachi, Pakistan. The Rhodes Scholarship will enable Khan to study immigrants’ attitudes toward veiling before and after they moved to London from Karachi and then compare the results from Houston and London.

“My parents are immigrants from Pakistan, and I’ve been active in the Muslim community,” Khan explains. “These are the sorts of things that have shaped my interests.”

Her years at Rice also impacted her significantly. “The really small classes gave me opportunities to develop close relationships with professors like David Cook [assistant professor of religious studies] and Elora Shehabuddin [assistant professor of humanities and political science] and pursue independent studies that I wouldn’t have had at other places,” she says.

Rice also enabled Khan to indulge in activities that she had little experience with prior to college, such as writing for the Thresher and getting involved with the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, where she chairs the Baker Institute Student Forum.

An active campus leader, Khan has interned at Shirkat Gah (a Pakistani nongovernmental organization dealing with women’s rights), the U.S. Senate, the Middle East Institute, Amnesty International, and the Baker Institute Energy Forum. Girl Scouts of the USA recognized her as one of the nation’s top 10 Girl Scouts for her work in Muslim community organizing.

A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Khan sent her Rhodes Scholar application to the regional office for her home state after receiving an institutional endorsement from Rice. After the Rhodes Scholar committee selected Khan as a finalist, she traveled to Minnesota, which is in the same region as Michigan, to be interviewed with 14 other finalists during a group reception and then in a 20-minute individual session. The interview questions covered such topics as common experiences that all immigrants have, feminist research methods, a discussion of the multicultural nature of American society, and whether intelligent design should be taught in schools. Following her solo interview, Khan had to wait in a room with the other finalists for about five hours while the judges made their final decision.

“We played Trivial Pursuit and relaxed together,” Khan recalls, noting that the finalists were highly motivated people with similar interests. Khan and one other finalist from her region were selected for the scholarship.

Khan, a resident of Martel College, expresses gratitude for the support she has received from the Rice community. “I have many mentors all over campus and a lot of supporters, particularly at the Baker Institute. I really appreciate my association with them during the past four years.”

The 32 American students chosen for 2006 will join an international group of Rhodes Scholars chosen from 13 other nations. Approximately 85 scholars are selected worldwide each year.

—B. J. Almond and Margot Dimond