“Wooster is small enough to motivate you to keep achieving”

When Tamutenda Chidawanyika is asked what she likes best about Wooster, she cites its size. But there’s a twist. It’s not just the close interaction with faculty and myriad leadership opportunities on a campus of 1,800 students that she relishes.

“Wooster is small enough to motivate you to keep achieving, because people recognize you when you excel,” she says.

Chidawanyika, a junior chemistry major from Mutare, Zimbabwe, has packed a lot into her first two years at Wooster, from participating in the college’s ambassadors program — a group of international students who do presentations in the community about their countries’ culture, history, and current events — to a role in the theatre department’s projection of Tartuffe. This year, she is serving as president of the International Students Association, working as a resident assistant, and volunteering with the student wellness center as a first responder.

Last summer, Chidawanyika spent four weeks at Rhodes University in South Africa, studying the impact of HIV/AIDS and the lingering effects of decades of apartheid.

“There’s still a lot of racism, a lot of segregation,” she said. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commissions “have done the truth part pretty well, but reconciliation is still mostly on the surface.”

Chidawanyika’s South Africa trip was made possible by the college’s Lilly Project for the Exploration of Vocation. She has known since the day she arrived on campus that she wanted to be a doctor. She has added a Chinese minor to her chemistry major, because of her interest in traditional Chinese medicine. But the trip helped clarify what to do after medical school: she plans ultimately to return to Africa to work where the need is greatest.