Jenna Smith ’21 Named Rhodes Scholar

Kent Place is proud to announce that Duke University senior Jenna Smith — Kent Place Class of 2021 — is one of 32 recipients of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, chosen from 865 applicants across the United States. Jenna is a Robertson Scholar majoring in international comparative studies with a minor in journalism and media.

Rhodes Scholarships pay all expenses for two or three years of study at Oxford, and Scholars are chosen for academic excellence, a commitment to making a positive difference in the world, a concern for the welfare of others, a consciousness of inequities, and their promise of leadership.

At the University of Oxford, Jenna will pursue an MSc in criminology and criminal justice and an MSc in comparative social policy. She says she’s passionate about advancing restorative justice in the Deep South and plans to move to the Mississippi Delta, where she’ll practice law and advocate for substantive criminal-legal reform. 

“The foundation of how I show up in the classroom was shaped by my Kent Place education and the incredible community I was part of,” Jenna says. “Kent Place taught me to be confident, to ask difficult questions and engage actively, and to remember that I belong in the rooms I find myself in. My amazing teachers taught me how to use my education to think deeply and critically about the world around me. They taught me to question and to use my education to make the world around me better in whatever way I can. I never doubted that they believed in me.” 

Jenna credits the KPS ethics programming for her leadership style. “The Rhodes emphasizes values-centered leadership, something I first developed an understanding of while working with Karen Rezach, Director of the Ethics Institute, and the Ethics Bowl Team. What I love about the ethics education at Kent Place is that it doesn’t exist only in the abstract — through the values you put in conversation with one another in the classroom, you come to an understanding of your individual values. There’s a space where students can discover the rationale that underlies the most important decisions in the broader worlds of policy and healthcare, but also in their own lives. That education has been pivotal in how I try to lead in my communities.” 

“Jenna was one of the most outstanding students of ethics: a bioethics scholar, a member of the 2018 National Champion Ethics Bowl Team, and co-captain of the team during her senior year,” says Dr. Rezach. “She was an incredible competitor because she could deliver the most insightful ethical commentary in a manner that was calm yet powerful.”

As co-president of the Duke Justice Project, Jenna and her team forged a partnership with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Division of Juvenile Justice to create a leadership-development summer camp for youth throughout the state. She has contributed to the Innocence Project; the Delta Center for Culture and Learning, in Mississippi; and the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. She’s a co-instructor for a House Course on correctional systems and reentry processes and facilitates programs with Restorative Justice Durham. An accomplished journalist, she has reported for the Chicago Tribune and the 9th Street Journal.

Congratulations, Jenna, on this well-deserved recognition!