Two Juniors Receive Eve Carson Scholarships
Posted on Feb. 2, 2011Two juniors – Mark Clarke of Fairview and Zachary De La Rosa of Raleigh – have been named Eve Carson Scholars.
The scholarship funds half the cost of attending Carolina in their senior year, plus $5,000 each for a summer enrichment experience.
Clarke is majoring in English, with minors in history and creative writing. De La Rosa is double majoring in mathematics and economics with a minor in philosophy.
The nine-member selection committee of students, faculty, staff and alumni chose Clarke and De La Rosa from among 95 applicants.
Clarke, a 2008 graduate of A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, said that growing up on a farm, which has been in his family for generations, instilled in him a passion for food, the process that it goes through before it reaches our plates and its integral place in building a community.
He helped start the Carolina Campus Community Garden over the past year and a half. The garden grows fresh, organic, inexpensive produce for housekeepers and other low-wage UNC staff members. It also helps strengthen relationships between students and UNC staff.
Clarke hopes to spend part of his Eve Carson Scholarship Summer Experience involving local at-risk teens in the garden.
He loves helping build community, either through gardening or in his work as the Outreach and Service Chair at the Reformed University Fellowship at UNC. In his spare time, Clarke plays the harmonica in a band and spends as much time gardening and with friends as possible.
De La Rosa, a 2008 graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Math, helped start the economic development center of the Carolina chapter of the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network. He believes that economics and access to money help people realize their dignity as humans. De La Rosa’s peers recently elected him president of the Carolina chapter.
De La Rosa hopes to spend his summer experience working with a micro-finance initiative internationally. He wants to better understand the real-life effects of poverty in other countries so that his study of economic development is more tangible and applicable.
De La Rosa has overcome hearing problems and taught sign language to students in the Triangle. He has not let his hearing problems as a child stop him from becoming a strong public speaker. He is a senator in the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies – a student debate and literary group – chair of the rules and judiciary committee of Student Congress and a member of the choir at the Newman Catholic Student Center.
The Eve Carson Scholarship was established in 2008 in memory of Eve Carson, UNC’s 2007-08 student body president, who died in March 2008. One of what she called her “Big Ideas” as president was to create a merit-based scholarship for UNC juniors.
The scholarship honors students who have demonstrated transformative growth while at Carolina by taking advantage of the resources offered. Through this growth, they have gained self-awareness that enabled them to find their passion and use it to contribute to their community in a lasting and meaningful way.
“Mark and Zach characterize the idea of excellence with a heart that both former Chancellor James Moeser and Eve spoke about,” said Katherine Novinski, a senior from Irving, Texas, and Carson scholarship director. “They have found ways to contribute to their community by developing into the best individuals they can be. At the same time, they maintain an outward focus on how they can improve the lives of others within the community.”
More online…
- Eve Carson Scholarship Has Two Recipients
January 2010 news report - First Eve Marie Carson Scholarship Awarded
February 2009 news report - Death Penalty Sought Against Carson Suspect
August 2008 news report - Two Charged In Eve Carson’s Death; Second Charged Also in Duke Killing
April 1, 2008 news report - Videos of “A Celebration of the Life of Eve Carson 1985-2008”
- “Born Bathed in Carolina Blue,” essay published March 19 by Wall Street Journal reporter Wendy Bounds ’93, a 2007 recipient of the GAA’s Distinguished Young Alumna Award
- Never a Stranger – Three Classmates Remember Eve Carson
- Letter from Chancellor Moeser
- Eve Carson’s student body president Web page
- Eve Carson’s campaign Web page
