Two Cornell University undergraduates are among a very select group of students, nationwide, chosen to receive 2003 Rhodes Scholarships for two or three years of study at Oxford University in England.

The new Cornell Rhodes scholars, both from the university's College of Arts and Sciences, are seniors Brian Finucane, of Rush, Ky., and Somjen Frazer, of Wilkesboro, N.C. Finucane and Frazer are among 32 Rhodes scholars who were chosen from among 981 applicants endorsed by 341 colleges and universities in a nationwide competition. Cornell was one of only five universities to have more than one Rhodes scholar for 2003.

The Rhodes Scholarships, the oldest of the international study awards available to American students, were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, British philanthropist and colonial pioneer. Selection criteria for scholars include "high academic achievement, integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership and physical vigor." The Rhodes Trust pays all college and university fees for scholars, provides a stipend to cover necessary expenses while in residence in Oxford, as well as during vacations, and transportation to and from England.

Brian Finucane [pronounced "fin-NEW-ken"] plans to use his Rhodes scholarship to pursue a doctorate in archaeology at Oxford after graduating from Cornell in May 2003 with a bachelor's degree in archaeology and anthropology.

His undergraduate research has taken Finucane, 23, to southern Peru for a study of paleopathology and trauma in a Middle Horizon population and to Italy's Tuscany and Lazio regions to study Etruscan mortuary architecture. Finucane's research into the life and causes of death of a 14th century Peruvian woman -- now a mummy in the university's Anthropology Collections -- was featured earlier this fall in an episode of the popular National Geographic Channel program, "The Mummy Road Show."

When Finucane isn't studying ancient dead people, his concern is for the health of the living, serving more than 100 hours a month as a volunteer firefighter and "bunker" at the Ithaca Fire Department's Company No. 9 station on College Avenue. He is certified as an interior firefighter, emergency medical technician and rope-rescue technician, and he also is trained in automobile extrication and in glacier travel and crevasse rescue. Before he came to Cornell, Finucane, served as a prison ministry volunteer in Lexington and as a volunteer in the University of Kentucky's radio station, WRFL-FM, where he had the 3 to 6 a.m. shift on Wednesday mornings.

Previous honors to Finucane include a Harry Caplan Travel Fellowship (2002), Jacob and Hedwig Hirsch Grant for Archaeological Fieldwork (2002), Einhorn Discovery Grant (2001) and a College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Grant (2001). A high school graduate of Choate, Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Conn., Finucane has been on the dean's list at Cornell every semester since matriculating in 1999.

"I'm very excited about pursuing archaeological research at Oxford," said Finucane. "I hope to use Oxford's ancient DNA facilities to understand pre-Hispanic human population movements in the Andes."

Somjen Frazer came to Cornell, she said, because it promised to give her opportunities to conduct research as an undergraduate.

The university did not disappoint: Frazer, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is already the author or co-author of seven conference papers and journal articles, most of them relating to the history and oppression of racial and sexual minorities and women.

"As a Cornell Presidential Research Scholar, I have been supported since my freshman year to participate in many research projects, many of them related to social justice," said Frazer, who also is a Telluride Residential Scholar, a Dean's Scholar, a member of the senior honor societies of the Quill and Dagger and Phi Beta Kappa and a past John Kenneth Galbraith Scholar in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard. "As a large research university, Cornell has a lot of opportunities for undergraduates, and I feel like I've benefited from excellent faculty mentors."

Most recently, Frazer, as a Bartels Undergraduate Action Research Fellow at Cornell, studied the social barriers that women who partner with women encounter when receiving health services on campus. She worked with a task force of clinicians and other staff at Gannett: University Health Services to conduct research and found that lesbians and bisexual women often avoid college health services because they perceive institutional, cultural and interpersonal barriers. She not only made suggestions for changes at Gannett and conducted training for clinicians there but also presented her findings at the American Public Health Association conference last month in Philadelphia.

Frazer has worked with Shelly Campo, Cornell assistant professor of communication -- to whom Frazer gives enormous credit for her input and guidance -- conducting research on student misperceptions on drinking, public opinion about reparations for U.S. slavery and how the media shapes public opinion regarding upstate New York Iroquois land claim cases.

"I have never encountered a student like Somjen Frazer," said Campo. "Having been affiliated with four universities and thousands of undergraduate students, I would rank her asthe very best student I have encountered in regard to her academic ability, motivation and ability to think. She is also clearly in the top 1 percent of Cornell students in regard to her driving passion and concern for helping others and eliminating social inequality and poor treatment of marginalized groups."

Frazer, who as a College Scholar in arts and sciences has pursued an interdisciplinary major in social movements, is now working on examining the issues of AIDS activism and caregiving for her honors thesis. In the fall, she will begin work on a master's degree in sociology at Oxford University and hopes to pursue a doctorate so she can one day be a college professor who works with local communities in participatory action research.

"I couldn't be happier for Somjen and Brian," said Beth Fiori, fellowship coordinator for Cornell Career Services, who works with prestigious scholarship applicants over many months. "They are compassionate intellectuals, dedicated to making the world better, charismatic in non-obvious ways and, for all that, modest, too."

Rhodes scholars are chosen in a three-stage process, involving local selection and state and sectional interviews. Candidates first must be endorsed by their colleges or universities. At Cornell, applicants submit their materials to the Rhodes and Marshall Endorsement Committee for review and then sit for a rigorous interview with members of the committee. Many of these committee members then join others in advising endorsed applicants as they finalize their essays and help them with interview preparation.

Faculty members who served on this year's Cornell endorsement committee are: James E. Adams (a former Rhodes scholar), English; David Allee, applied economics and management; Graeme Bailey, computer science; Charles Brittain, classics; Stuart Davis, English; Jane Hardy, communication (emerita); Michele Moody-Adams (a former Marshall scholar), ethics and public life; Reeve Parker (a former Rhodes scholar), English; Steven Strogatz (a former Marshall scholar), theoretical and applied mathematics; Jennifer Wissink, economics; and research associate Robert Wyttenbach (a former Marshall scholar), neurobiology and behavior.