Scholarship Winner Named Rhodes Scholar

Scholarship Winner Named Rhodes Scholar

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The Braille Monitor – February, 2001 Edition

NFB Scholarship Winner Named Rhodes Scholar

Zach Battles

From the Editor: Zach Battles was a 2000 NFB Scholarship winner. He's a
quiet guy, but those who know him say he is funny, lively, and interesting.
He is also very smart. This year he will finish undergraduate majors in computer
science and math and a master's in computer science. The 2001 Rhodes Scholars
were named on December 10, and Zach's name was on the list. Here is the article
that appeared on December 12 in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Rhodes Scholar's

Blindness Gave Him

Will to Succeed

by Ralph

Vigoda

Zachary J. Battles has ambition, guts, and an extraordinary brain. He is a
math and computer whiz, loves the theater, and he leaves tomorrow for a second
stint teaching English in Ukraine. He is also blind.

Without sight almost since birth and adopted from a South Korean orphanage
when he was four, Battles, a twenty-one-year-old senior at Pennsylvania State
University, has spent his life proving that a lack of sight need not be a deterrent.
On Saturday the latest affirmation came when he was named one of thirty-two
Rhodes Scholars, earning one of the most prestigious academic fellowships in
the world.

Next summer he will go to Oxford, England, where he will spend at least two
years pursuing a doctorate in numerical analysis.

He expects to graduate from Penn State in spring, 2001, with three degrees:
a bachelor's in math, and a bachelor's and master's in computer science. And
a minor in French.

Taking six to seven courses a semester, he has maintained a near-perfect grade-point
average.

"I've always wanted to go to Oxford," said Battles, whose family
lives in State College, a few blocks from campus. "This is just one of
the ways of getting there. But I didn't focus on aiming for a Rhodes, because
they're so difficult to get."

The winners, officially announced Sunday, came from 950 applicants nationwide.
Battles learned of his selection Saturday, after being interviewed in New York
City by a nine‑member Rhodes board.

Three of the thirty-two scholars are from Pennsylvania, the most from any one
state. They are Battles; Seth A. Bodnar of Franklin, who attends the U.S. Military
Academy; and Brandon Miller of Mohrsville, a student at Princeton University.

The University of Pennsylvania's Lipika Goyal of Scotch Plains, North Jersey,
and Thomas M. Pallathy of Newark, Delaware, and the University of Delaware,
also were selected.

Applying for the Rhodes was actually an afterthought for Battles, said Mary
Gage, who coordinates undergraduate fellowships at Penn State. Battles came
to her after the school already had decided on its nominees. She told him he
might want to apply next year.

"But I thought about it overnight and told him to try for it," she
said. "When you look at what he's done to get there, he has to be looked
at as a campus phenomenon."

Battles was adopted by Richard and Barbara Battles, becoming part of a family
that eventually would grow to eighteen children--fifteen of them adopted--who
now range in age from five to thirty-one.

"We saw right away how bright he was," said Barbara Battles. "I
worked with him part of each day, because we wanted to mainstream him into the
school district, not send him to a special school. He learned Braille way before
he started school."

His academic prowess was evident early on, and he thrived on challenges, his
teachers say. After graduating from State College High School in 1997, he entered
Penn State's Schreyer Honors College.

"He's been a very dedicated and committed scholar for many years,"
said Cheryl Achtenberg, the dean of Schreyer. "He has a tremendous power
of concentration, so he can pick up different things very quickly. Usually you
only have to show him how to do something once, and he has learned it forever.

"And he fends very well for himself. He doesn't lean on people to help
him at all. He was well-known in school, well-liked, and an inspiration for
anyone who's acquainted with him."

Battles said his blindness--it is caused by the rare genetic eye disorder Leber's
congenital amaurosis--played a part in his drive to prove nothing could hold
him back.

"Every blind individual has a responsibility to show everyone else that
they are just as capable of doing things," Battles said.

He has designed teaching tools for the blind. Last year he was part of an international
delegation that traveled to Costa Rica to exchange ideas with disabled residents
of that country. Besides returning to Ukraine, he plans to take a two-week course
in theater in London during his winter break before beginning the spring semester
at Penn State.

"I've grown up loving the theater and wanted to expand my horizons,"
Battles said.

He is not sure whether he eventually will teach or continue with his research.
He is sure he wants to continue to work with the disabled.

"There are different paths I can take," Battles said. "I'm just
willing to help, however and whenever I can."

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