Iowa boasts two Rhodes scholars: University of Iowa and Coe seniors headed to Oxford

Earlier this year in April, Katie Ameku received an email she’d been anxiously awaiting. It was news on her application to the prestigious Truman Scholar Program, which awards up to $30,000 to exemplary college juniors showing exceptional leadership potential.

“I ended up not getting it,” Ameku, now a Coe College senior, told The Gazette.

But the setback didn’t derail her scholarship pursuits, instead redirecting the mathematics and physics major toward the globally-esteemed Rhodes scholarship program — which for more than a century has been awarding a sliver of student applicants full-ride scholarships to study at the University of Oxford in England.

“The day I got the email that I didn’t get (the Truman scholarship), I went to Dr. Shaw’s office and began talking to her about my Rhodes application,” Ameku, 22, said of the speed with which she tapped Coe’s National Fellowship Adviser Amber Shaw for help. “So pretty quickly. Like the same day.”

Fast forward seven months, Ameku again found herself a finalist for a coveted scholarship. But this time, instead of an email, she and the other Rhodes finalists were brought into a room Nov. 16 at the University Club of Chicago and told the announcement would happen right there, in person — read in alphabetical order.

“Seeing that my last name starts with an A, I knew that if I wasn’t the first person, then I wasn’t it,” she said. “But they had been calling me Katherine all of this finalist-interview time. So when they announced me as Katie, I almost didn’t hear them. It didn’t register.”

When it finally did — thanks to applause in her direction from fellow finalists — Ameku, who’s never left the continental United States, was stunned.

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“It was so weird leaving the University Club and having no papers or no anything and just this sense that, did this just happen?” she said. “It was almost like a dream.”

But it wasn’t. And Ameku’s first call about her new reality was to her mom, who was beyond ecstatic. Then to her girlfriend, who also was “very proud.” And then to Shaw to let her know that she had advised her first Rhodes scholar.

“Then I called my brother, who was actually attending school in Chicago, to come pick me up,” she said, recalling they grabbed a quick Chicago-style bite to celebrate. “We went to Portillo’s. And then I drove home.”

In the room with Ameku and the finalists that day was another Iowa-based Rhodes recipient — University of Iowa senior Paras Bassuk, marking UI’s 23rd Rhodes scholar since the program’s inception in 1902.

‘I would be surprised’

Having two Rhodes scholars in a single year is a feat for any state, given the program’s U.S. allotment is 32 annually and Ivy League campuses typically snag many — including 10 in the 2025 crop of scholars.

Since Cecil John Rhodes in the early 1900s established what is now the oldest graduate scholarship in the world, Harvard University has amassed the most winners — by a lot — at 399. The second and third highest counts also go to the Ivy League: Yale University has had 266 and Princeton University has had 218, according to the Rhodes Trust.

But most American colleges and universities that have had at least one Rhodes recipient report single-digit scholars — like Coe, which now has had three, including Ameku; environmentalist Darryl Banks in 1972; and Paul Engle in 1931, a decade before he began directing the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the UI.

“I would be surprised if Iowa has ever had two Rhodes scholars at the same time before,” Shaw told The Gazette.

In the state, the UI has had the most Rhodes scholars with its 23, followed by Grinnell College with 14, Luther College with eight, Iowa State University with five, Drake University and Cornell College each with four; and Coe.

In the Big Ten, the UI has had more than most of the conference’s other 17 campuses, according to the Rhodes Trust, topping all but four: University of Washington’s 37; University of Wisconsin’s 32; University of Michigan’s 30; and University of Minnesota’s 24.

Cecil Rhodes’ will listed four criteria for choosing scholars: literary and scholastic attainment; energy to use one’s talents to the full; truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship; and moral force of character, instinct to lead and interest in one’s fellow beings.

Including the United States’ 32 scholars annually, the Rhodes program each year supports more than 100 worldwide to pursue degrees at Oxford. Past Rhodes scholars include former President Bill Clinton; U.S. Sen. Cory Booker; former U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice; and astronomer Edwin Hubble, whose research was immortalized in the Hubble Space Telescope.

For the 2025 cohort, nearly 3,000 U.S. students applied, and committees across 16 districts chose a total of 238 finalists.

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‘How to ask’

The UI’s Bassuk — graduating in May with a degree in psychology, a Spanish minor and a human rights certificate — earlier this month became the campus’ latest Rhodes scholar, with plans to pursue degrees in comparative social policy and socio-legal research when they head to Oxford next fall.

In addition to their studies, Bassuk operates a portraiture studio as an accomplished photographer; is a jazz drummer, bass guitarist and classical bassist; and advocates for policymaking at the state level.

“What sets Paras apart is their ability to bridge the arts and sciences, a hallmark of what makes our campus community unique,” Ethan Kutlu, associate professor of linguistics and psychological and brain sciences, said in a statement. “Paras exemplifies the strength that comes from integrating these disciplines.”

Involved in research since the freshman year, Bassuk has studied neurocognitive child development and learned “how to ask an empirical question and find answers.”

“I think that sometimes undergraduate students may underestimate their ability to ask a question relevant to their field,” Bassuk said. “UI has many champions of undergraduate researchers. Sometimes, all it takes to find a mentor is to send an email or have a conversation after class.”

Coe’s Ameku is testament to the power of asking — having applied to 17 schools from her hometown of Independence, Mo., and landing Coe’s Williston Jones full-tuition scholarship to bring her to Cedar Rapids in 2021.

“During that first year, Dr. Shaw did a webinar about all the fellowship opportunities and scholarship opportunities we have here at Coe,” she said. “Then the summer after my sophomore year in college, I called Dr. Shaw, and I was like, ‘I want to apply’.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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