As the semester comes to a close and another class of seniors look to graduate from Davidson next week, three standout members of the class of 2025 will head across the pond thanks to prestigious scholarships. Madeline Dierauf ‘25 has been named a Rhodes Scholar, and Grace McGuire ‘25 and Steve Mirabello ‘25 have been named W. Thomas Smith Scholars. Some might recognize McGuire for her comedic timing with her fellow improv members in Oops! or for her hosting skills for Union Board trivia this year. Others might have heard Dierauf play the fiddle in the Duke Family Performance Hall with her Appalachian folk band Wilder Flower and know Mirabello for his extensive work with The College Crisis Initiative or his ultimate frisbee skills. Their extracurricular and academic achievements speak for themselves, and these students will continue to add to their list of accomplishments in England.

The Rhodes Scholarship is a fully funded, international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford. The Smith Scholarship, established by Tom Smith ‘48, funds all eligible expenses associated with a full-time graduate program in any field at a major university outside the United States for up to one year.

For Dierauf, her passion for both the fiddle and academics made up the heart of her application to the Rhodes Scholarship. An independent study with Professor of Religious Studies Dr. Anne Wills made clear that these two components of Dierauf’s identity held profound intersections and led her to pursue a masters in American studies and philosophical theology. “We just read a novel a week more or less, and they were all American novels from the 20th century […] it got me thinking about regional or folk literature, and how that could be sort of similar [to the] emotional feel to music,” Dierauf said.

This interest in folk art compelled Dierauf to conduct research this past summer for Professor of English Dr. Hudson Vincent. Dierauf began to research the ballads that often accompanied the shipping of prisoners from England to the colonizing effort in the Americas. “I got to look at ballads about people who are being convicted of very minor crimes and sent from England to the Americas to help colonize. There are a lot of old broadside ballads about that because it tends to be sort of a folk form about lower class experiences,” Dierauf explained.

“That really helped me make my pitch for these fellowships. [I want] to think about how being in England and having access to old ballad archives would be really valuable historically and also artistically, bringing together literature and the academic side with the full art side,” Dierauf said. 

McGuire, whose mother and sister both pursued masters in the United Kingdom, is excited to carry on somewhat of a family tradition while also creating her own unique experiences at the University of Cambridge.

“My mom went to [Cambridge] for her masters so […] when I was 12, we went to England and she said, ‘We have to go to Cambridge for a day’ and I remember being so in awe […] As a 12-year-old, when people are like, ‘Where do you want to go to college?’ I’d always say, ‘Cambridge,’” McGuire described. “I keep joking, it’s kind of like going to Hogwarts.”  

As a digital studies and art history double major, McGuire is excited to pursue her masters in digital humanities because of the versatility of the field. McGuire, whose art history thesis revolved around how AI labels pictures submitted by family and friends, has studied how art has adapted to the modern age. “When we all started at Davidson, AI wasn’t a thing at all, and now we’re graduating and it’s more of a thing. I guess that’s what I think is super cool about the digital world, [it’s] that things are constantly evolving and developing […] [When] I think of what I’m going to do in ten years, I don’t think it is necessarily something that exists right now.”

For Mirabello, who will attend the London School of Economics to pursue a masters in philosophy and public policy, studying abroad is not unfamiliar territory. In the summer after his first year at Davidson, he went to France later returned to the country to spend a fall semester abroad in Paris. In the summer of 2024, he then ventured to Belfast, Ireland as part of a study abroad program with the educational studies department and, shortly after the program ended, used his stipend as a John M. Belk Scholar to study in Japan for a few weeks.  

Much of Mirabello’s studies have centered around his interest in higher education policy, including his thesis for his philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) major. “What I argue is that the university is a really interesting case study for unionizations because you have a bunch of different types of employee groups all under one employer. You have faculty, you have various kinds of staff, various kinds of student workers. I look[ed] at the state of unionizations in higher education and then ran a model to try to predict the factors associated with universities experiencing unionization,” he described.

Mirabello is excited about the opportunity to further his own interests. “Most of the programs I applied to were more applied public policy programs, and this was a pretty unique program because it was philosophy and public policy. I was actually pretty sure I was going to [a] more applied [public policy program] until the last minute, [but] I talked to some of my advisors and [they encouraged] me to follow the program I felt most passionate about and let the rest take care of itself,” he said. 

Beyond the educational scope, these students are excited to explore their new home. McGuire, who received a Dean Rusk grant to study how comedy works in the United Kingdom during the summer of 2023, is excited to take her Davidson passions to Cambridge.

“Cambridge has their own stand-up group called Footlights, so I’m excited about that,” she stated. “[It] is on the water, so they also have these boats called punts, and so you push them along the waterside. […] University Challenge is also a trivia game show, and it’s all people from different colleges like Cambridge and Oxford [and] other universities, so maybe I’ll try University Challenge too.”

Dierauf, too, foresees a couple of must-do activities. “When I think of England, I picture myself in the nosebleed seats at the [Royal Shakespeare Company] Playhouse […] Also, I really want to go to the Cotswolds and hike,” Dierauf mused. She also stated that her fiddle practice will certainly figure into her time in England. “I just have a feeling, knowing myself, that if I’m not playing pretty regularly with people and in public, I’ll be pretty bored and unhappy. I think I’ll have to find some sort of way to make that happen.”

As these three students look back on their time at Davidson, they emphasized how their experience has prepared them well for what lies ahead. “I think the [intimate] nature of academics at Davidson makes me feel much better about entering graduate school […] I feel like I’ve had at least some amount of exposure to true interdisciplinary work here that feels pretty unique to Davidson, so the mentorship and intense nature of humanity that Davidson has will be great preparations,” Dierauf stated. 

Mirabello felt similarly. “I think one of the best things has been the close relationships with peers and faculty […] having small class sizes and this kind of residential community where everybody’s learning from each other has definitely shaped me, and it’s something I’m going to try to recreate as much as I can, even at a bigger, more cosmopolitan university.”

McGuire also commented on the support she felt from the Davidson community throughout her application process. “I’ve had moments of gratitude, and I think something really special about Davidson professors [is] that they want the best for you. And I know you could say that about a lot of schools, but I think there’s just something truly special here,” she stated.