Source: Benjamin Champion, champion@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Andy Badeker, 785-532-6415, abadeker@k-state.edu
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
K-STATE RHODES SCHOLAR EARNS DOCTORATE IN GEOGRAPHY FROM OXFORD
MANHATTAN -- Benjamin Champion, a 2003 Rhodes Scholar from Kansas State University, has been granted his doctorate in geography from Oxford University in England.
Champion performed nine months of doctoral fieldwork in eastern Kansas, where he analyzed the many distribution barriers that prevent small producers from bringing their foodstuffs to viable markets.
"It's definitely a big weight off my shoulders," Champion said of hearing the news. "But it is a little scary moving out of the school system and starting to look for a job."
Champion has been working at K-State's department of geography on a temporary basis this year. In the fall he helped lead the capstone course in natural resources and environmental science, and this spring he is teaching world regional geography. He earned his bachelor's in chemistry from K-State in 2002 before taking up his Oxford studies.
Richard A. Marston, university distinguished professor and head of the geography department, said he would love to have Champion as a permanent faculty member, "but we don't have a position for him.
"He's an outstanding instructor in the classroom, and students really like him," Marston said. "And he's had some great ideas for developing networks of local food producers and helping them get their food to market."
In the meantime, Champion plans to job-hunt at the upcoming April meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Boston. In addition to considering work in climate policy, Champion remains attached to his doctoral projects.
"I came across a lot of neat products and neat people who were having a lot of problems, given the structural barriers," he said. He's working with several of them to plan possible cooperative arrangements for improving distribution models.
A doctorate from Oxford comes with two quirks, Champion has discovered. While most universities followed Cambridge University's lead and abbreviate the degree to Ph.D., Oxford stuck with its own label, D.Phil., which Champion is now entitled to append to his name. And space constraints at the graduation ceremony mean Champion won't don his gown until June 2009.
"In some ways I'd like it to be sooner," Champion said, "but this way we have time to plan and we can include more family members in the celebration." Champion grew up in Olathe, where his parents still live. He is a graduate of Olathe South High School.
K-State ranks first nationally among state universities in its total of Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater and Udall scholars since 1986. K-State students have won more than $2 million in those competitions.
"The geography program at Oxford is one of the best, if not the best, in the world," Marston said. "For Ben to complete his doctorate there is quite an achievement."