News Release

Saul Garlick, a Johns Hopkins University junior from Denver, is one of 75 students from 65 U.S. colleges and universities named a 2005 Truman Scholar. The prestigious annual award is for extraordinary juniors committed to careers in public service. The Harry S. Truman Foundation announced its latest group of scholars on March 29.

Each scholar receives $30,000 for graduate study and is eligible for priority admission and supplemental financial aid at some premier graduate institutions. They also receive leadership training, career and graduate school counseling, and have access to special internship opportunities within the federal government. Recipients must be U.S. citizens, have outstanding leadership potential and communication skills and be in the top quarter of their class. Johns Hopkins' most recent previous Truman Scholar was Leo J. Wise, who received the award in 1998.

The Truman Scholarship Foundation was established by Congress in 1975 as the federal memorial to America's 33rd president. Garlick joins more than 2,400 Truman Scholars elected since the first awards were made in 1977. This year's winners will meet May 16 for a weeklong leadership development program at William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., and receive their awards in a special ceremony at the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., on May 22. Information is available online at http://www.truman.gov.

Garlick plans to pursue graduate study, focused on American foreign policy toward Africa, at the university's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. He is enrolled in a combined bachelor's and master's degree program and will begin his graduate studies at SAIS next year.

"Saul is the kind of student our nation's best universities strive to attract," said Steven David, professor and director of the International Studies Program in the university's Political Science Department. "He combines a keen sense of intellectual inquiry with a passion for helping others. Hopkins is and will continue to be a better place because of him."

Garlick is the founder of Student Movement for International Relief, a non-profit organization with chapters on college campuses around the nation. Participants raise awareness of issues facing neglected regions of the world and provide aid to those regions through fund raising. The group is currently building schools in rural South Africa. Garlick is also founder and editor-in-chief of The Hopkins Donkey, the Democratic publication of the Johns Hopkins University. He was co-chair of the 2004 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, a campus lecture series about national politics, and has served on several committees including the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee and the Dean's Student Advisory Council. He has interned on Capitol Hill for his representative, Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Garlick is the son of Ivor and June Garlick. He graduated as valedictorian from East High School in Denver in 2002.