I’m excited to travel to Washington, DC this week to begin service on the the 2010 White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.

The US Presidential Scholars Program was established by Executive Order of the President in 1964 under Lyndon B. Johnson, to recognize and honor distinguished graduating high school seniors across the country.  Before I even get to DC, it’s already clear that meeting my fellow Commissioners and diving into the work of the Commission will be truly rewarding and affirming — I was up late the other night doing preparatory homework to get familiar with the program application process, and one of the young candidate’s applications actually moved me to tears for the sheer beauty of his writing!

So it’s sure to be uplifting to witness the breadth of talent and character represented in these outstanding students nationwide.  This appointment also holds special significance to me because in 1989, I was honored to be named a Presidential Scholar from Kansas.  Serving on this Commission 21 years later is a tremendous opportunity to participate full-circle in a program that gave me such a positive experience and fond memories.

In reflecting on my experience with the program in 1989, I’m particularly struck that these graduating seniors in 2010 haven’t known a world without the World Wide Web — when I was named a Scholar in 1989, we hadn’t yet known a world with it.  I remember getting my first email address as a freshman at Stanford later that fall, and only being able to email the two or three high school classmates who happened to have email at college too.  And it wasn’t until several years later in 1995 that I’d find myself joining Jerry Yang and David Filo as part of their initial development team of five people, in a brand new startup called Yahoo!.

I can’t imagine what these students will experience in the next 21 years, but I’m sure glad to be in their company as we co-author that future together.

-Srinija Srinivasan
Vice President, Editor in Chief