Student earns All-USA spot

Senior Philip Roessler was one of 20 college students named to the 12th annual USA Today All-USA Academic First Team Thursday.\nRoessler is part of the team selected from 682 nominees nationwide for his intellectual achievement and leadership. Members of the first team are awarded $2,500 and were featured in Thursday's USA Today. \nOutstanding individual scholarship or intellectual achievement and leadership roles in activities on and off campus were among the criteria judges used. Nominees were also evaluated based on academic performance, honors, awards, rigor of academic pursuits and the ability to express themselves in writing.\n"Philip is, in my opinion, one of those rare students who has truly made a significant difference in the lives of others students in Bloomington, but most importantly, citizens in western Kenya," said Bloomington Chancellor Kenneth Gros Louis. "It is almost inconceivable to me that an undergraduate could have such an impact in such a brief period of time."\nRoessler said he found out he was nominated about three weeks ago.\n"It is a great honor and a testament to IU," he said. "Outreach Kenya Development Volunteers would never have gotten off the ground if it had not been for the administrators and faculty of Indiana University, especially Chancellor Gros Louis ... The unwavering support and encouragement he\nprovided us demonstrates his devotion to students a feeling that emanates throughout this campus from faculty and administrators alike." \nRoessler is a political science major with minors in economics and biology. He has earned a 3.82 grade point average and is working on a senior honors thesis on the civil war in Sudan. \n"I hope to receive a Ph.D. in political science, specializing in international relations and conflict resolution," Roessler said. "After graduate school, I hope to be an academic who has his hand in policy, whether consulting governments or advising mediation teams." \nA co-founder of the student group Outreach Kenya Development Volunteers, Roessler hopes to help slow the worsening of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Roessler and former student Hank Selke founded the group in 1999 after reading a series of The New York Times articles on the epidemic.\n"We both had a strong desire to make our small contribution in the global fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic," Roessler said. "It is a health crisis of unimaginable magnitude that is setting back development in sub-Saharan Africa by decades. No aspect of society remains unaffected by the scourge; it is a health, political, economic, social and cultural problem."\nRoessler and Selke met in the fall of 1998, shortly after Selke returned from western Kenya. Together they decided to start Outreach Kenya.\n"(Selke) had made contacts with the director of a grassroots community-based organization in Kenya, and we decided to start a student organization that would work in partnership with the Kenya community group," Roessler said. \nRoessler traveled to Kenya last summer to help implement an intensive HIV/AIDS awareness campaign for over 12,000 people and will return this summer with a group of students, some of whom will take over the leadership of Outreach Kenya next year.\nRoessler is also a member of the Board of Aeons, a group of select students who are appointed to provide student advice on matters of importance within the University.\n"Whereas I am gratefully indebted to IU for the tremendous educational experience I have had, I felt inclined to give back to campus," Roessler said. "Therefore, I have tried to suggest progressive and thoughtful changes to IU through the Board of Aeons"