Baylor graduate and Chattanooga native Eric Roddy is in line to receive a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, which grants full financial support estimated at more than $50,000 per year to high-performing students who will pursue a degree or degrees at the university of Oxford in England.
The program, established by British businessman Cecil Rhodes to help students across the world study in England, will select 32 students out of a field nominated by more than 300 colleges and universities, according to a news release.
Roddy, a senior at Sewanee - University of the South, is a champion tennis player who established and taught an ACT-prep class at Grundy County High School to help rural teens attend college. He won the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Atlanta South Regional Doubles Championship, and placed second in the USTA/ITA Small College National Doubles Championship.
He has studied in Spain, has taken internships at the university, and works as a publisher for the Miami Dolphins page for Scout.com, to which he devotes about 15 hours per week.
He is pursuing a double major in English and Spanish with a minor in business.
If he is chosen as a Rhodes scholar, he hopes to study rural development in impoverished communities around London, according to a feature published on Sewanee.edu.