Kansas University has its five nominees for this year’s Rhodes and Marshall scholarship competitions.

Four seniors and one 2005 graduate will compete for the Marshall Scholarship – and three of them also will compete for the Rhodes. Both scholarships pay for tuition and living expenses at universities in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

“It’s such a self-selecting thing. Anyone who applies is really well-qualified,” said Sue Lorenz of the university’s honors program, which coordinates the competition. “Students have to have a really outstanding academic record, typically a 3.8 GPA or higher.”

The Marshall nominees are Nicholas Barnthouse, Leawood senior; Daniel Hogan, Leawood senior; John Kuhn, Jamestown senior; Cristina Fernandez, Asunción, Paraguay, senior; and Kate Sullivan, a 2005 graduate from Lenexa. Barnthouse, Hogan and Kuhn are also Rhodes nominees.

Kuhn said he was shocked when he found out he had been selected to advance in the competition. He hopes to study the role of dialects in 17th century language. He said through historical study, we can gain a better understanding of the way modern languages work in our society.

“If I don’t get these awards, I’ll do graduate study in these areas, but probably not in Oxford,” he said. “And Oxford is the place to do study on 17th century. The history is there.”

The students now must wait to find out whether they’ve been selected as finalists and therefore warrant an in-person interview in November. Fernandez said if she were selected as a finalist, she hoped to convey how important this opportunity would be to achieving her career goal of working in global development.

KU had no finalists last year, and its last winner was in 2005 when Ruth Anne French won a Rhodes Scholarship. Winners this year will be announced immediately after the interviews.