Wilner receives Rhodes scholarship

Wilner, a 2001 graduate, thus joins a distinguished company of Selwyn House graduates who have received the world’s most famous scholarship.

Now a senior philosophy major at Harvard, he is one of seven Harvard students to win the scholarship this year, which qualifies the winner for two years of study at Oxford University, with a possible one-year extension.

The secret of his success? “I just always did things that I really wanted to do and was passionate about doing,� Wilner told The Harvard Crimson. Specifically, he says he is passionate about theatre. While at Harvard, he has starred in a production of Hamlet, directed and acted in a series of Samuel Becket plays and worked with a theatre company in Paris.

Those who remember Wilner’s years at Selwyn House will recall his outstanding performances in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Pt I and in Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear. Even more outstanding was his performance in public speaking. Wilner and teammates Luke Reid and Adrian Gaty were the top Canadian team and the top team overall at the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Competition in England. He and Gaty were also co-recipients of the Lucas Medal, the highest honour awarded to a graduating student.

Wilner also has another Selwyn House pre-eminence to his name. In his senior year, he recorded a 97-per-cent grade average, the highest ever recorded at the school. He credits his parents, Asher Wilner and Deborah Zack-Wilner, for his overall achievements thus far, and the intellectual climate at Harvard for preparing him for the Rhodes Scholarship interview process.

The Rhodes Scholarships were established in 1902 through the estate of Cecil Rhodes, the British-born diamond magnate and Oxford alumnus who established Rhodesia in southern Africa. The scholarships were originally awarded only in the United States, Germany and the British Commonwealth, but its mandate has been enlarged over the decades. Eleven scholarships are awarded in Canada each year.

The list of eminent Rhodes scholars is long, and includes Montreal neurosurgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield; Former Canadian Governor General Roland Michener; former US President Bill Clinton; Former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk; astronomer Edwin Hubble; Australian Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir John C. Eccles; American poet Robert Penn Warren; Former US Senator J. William Fulbright; Former US Senator, US presidential candidate and pro basketball star Bill Bradley; NATO Commander and US presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark; and American songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson.



-- Selwyn House School.