2003 Beinecke Brothers Memorial Scholarship Awarded to Brooklyn College Student

Philosophy and classics scholar Nicholas Pitsirikos

A coveted 2003 Beinecke Brothers Memorial Scholarship has been awarded to Nicholas Pitsirikos, a senior majoring in philosophy and studying classical languages at Brooklyn College. Mr. Pitsirikos is the fourth Brooklyn College student honored with a Beinecke Scholarship in recent years.

Each year, approximately one hundred prestigious colleges and universities nationwide are invited to nominate a student for Beinecke Scholarships, which are designed to encourage and enable highly motivated students to pursue opportunities available to them and to be courageous in the selection of a graduated course of study. Since 1975, only 315 scholarships have been awarded. This year Pitsirikos was among the twenty-two students nationwide who were chosen to receive this highly coveted award.

Mr. Pitsirikos, who holds a 3.95 grade point average, is a member of the Scholars Program, a highly selective honors program for interdisciplinary study in the liberal arts. He completed studies in the Ford Colloquium, an honors research program for students with strong research interests. He plans to partake in an archeological expedition in Iceland this summer under the auspices of the National Science Foundation.

"I found the academic experience at Brooklyn College particularly rich and the opportunity for exploration endless," said Pitsirikos. "My professors strongly encouraged me to pursue many different lines of study and to bring them together in order to form a coherent picture of the world."

"In my extensive teaching career I have encountered only a handful of students with such a remarkable ability to synthesize ideas, to see connections among disciplines," said Ellen Belton, dean of undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College, who nominated Mr. Pitsirikos. "Nicholas is a true renaissance man in the breadth and depth of his intellectual interests and accomplishments."

The Beinecke Brothers Memorial Scholarship Program was established in 1971 by the board of directors of the Sperry and Hutchinson Company. The scholarship was created to honor Edwin, Frederick, and Walter Beinecke, who assumed leadership of the company in the 1920s. Each scholar receives $2,000 prior to entering graduate school to offset costs associated with the application process and an additional $30,000 while attending graduate school.