Stephen Silvius (COL ’07) was teaching his calculus class at a charter school in Los Angeles on Nov. 8 when a man he met the day before appeared at the door.

The man, an attorney who had interviewed him for the Marshall Scholarship Program the day before, came in and announced that Silvius had won the scholarship.

“I was teaching calculus, and suddenly my students turn around. I look and see that there is a man at the door. I recognized him, and that was when I thought, `Oh man, what is going on?’ He came in and said I won the scholarship,” said Silvius, who teaches at Animo Leadership High School.

It was announced on Monday that Silvius would be the 15th Georgetown student to receive the scholarship, which would allow him to study in the United Kingdom to pursue a master’s degree. This is the third year in the row that Georgetown has boasted one of the 40 college students around the country chosen to be Marshall Scholars.

“It was really exciting of course,” Silvius said. “I felt really good after the interview because I had presented a strong case for myself.”

The Marshall Scholarship, created in 1953 by an act of the British Parliament to honor the achievements of the Marshall Plan, the United States’ plan to rebuild its European allies after World War II, is funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and managed by the United Kingdom’s Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission. Recipients receive a full scholarship to attend one of several partnering institutions in the United Kingdom, which covers almost all of the expenses, including tuition, living expenses, book costs and travel costs.

While Silvius is still unclear about his specific plans for next October, he said he will leave his current teaching job and hopes to attend his first choice, which would be at the University of Oxford, to study educational research methodology and mathematics in addition to the foundations of computer science.

“Steve is on a crusade to reverse math ignorance in this country. Everyone, [Silvius] insists, can learn, everyone should be allowed to learn and no one, properly taught, is unable to do math,” John Glavin, university fellowship secretary and professor in the English department, wrote in Silvius’ nomination letter.

Those applying for the Marshall must have an undergraduate degree from an accredited four-year U.S. college or university with a minimum GPA of 3.7.

Silvius built a strong resume well before his time at Georgetown. According to a Georgetown press release, he founded HCS Educators while in high school, a company that provides SAT prep courses to underprivileged students in San Bernardino, Calif. At Georgetown, Silvius co-founded Georgetown Outreach for Learning and Education in Fall 2004, which brings small groups of students together to work in the inner city as tutors.

Silvius graduated from Georgetown summa cum laude in 2007, was awarded the Math department’s Dahlgren Medal for Excellence, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and was also a John Carroll Fellow.

Although Silvius was recruited by the office of the fellowship secretary at the beginning of his sophomore year due to his high GPA, he did not apply for the scholarship until after his senior year.

“I felt that my focus was math education, but I felt like I didn’t have any experience firsthand at the job. Had I not taken my time to grow, I wouldn’t have been as strong of a candidate,” he said.

After his study in the United Kingdom, Silvius said that he plans to obtain a PhD in mathematics, and added that while his career goals are only loosely defined, he will focus on education.

“I am really into running schools and the charter school movement,” he said.