Four May 2010 graduates of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are on USA Today’s All-USA College Academic Teams and are recognized in today’s (June 9) issue of the newspaper.
Four May 2010 graduates of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are on USA Today’s All-USA College Academic Teams and are recognized in today’s (June 9) issue of the newspaper.
Rhodes Scholar Elizabeth Blair “Libby” Longino of Dallas, Texas, and James Joseph “Jimmy” Waters of Morehead City were among 20 students the newspaper chose nationwide for its first team of 20.
Among students and graduates named to the paper’s second team were Rhodes Scholar Henry Lawlor Spelman of Swarthmore, Pa., and Lauren Nicole Teegarden of Lake Oswego, Ore. UNC has four of 60 students chosen nationwide for first, second and third teams.
The All-USA team honors full-time undergraduates who not only excel academically but also extend their intellectual abilities beyond the classroom to benefit society. Criteria include grades, academic rigor, leadership, activities and an essay by the student describing his or her most outstanding intellectual endeavor while in college.
All four UNC team members studied in the College of Arts and Sciences. Longino, Waters and Spelman came to Carolina on Morehead-Cain Scholarships – full, four-year merit scholarships that include four summer enrichment experiences.
Longino, the daughter of Gwen Longino and Joseph Longino of Dallas, spent one of her summers interning for an organization in Vietnam, where she interviewed clients of a microcredit project about their first loans.
Later, with Vietnamese colleagues, she started a foundation in Cambodia to combat child prostitution. Other Morehead-Cain summers took her to Taiwan – where Longino taught English and computer skills at a shelter for Vietnamese victims of human trafficking –Israel and Turkey.
A double major in English and public policy analysis, Longino was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She was president of the Carolina chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, a national student think tank.
In spring 2010, Longino taught other undergraduates a course on human trafficking based on her experiences and research. In the fall, she will head to Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar. She plans a career in human rights advocacy.
Waters, the son of Jim and Barbara Waters of Morehead City, majored in mathematical decision science and economics and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
Through his Morehead-Cain, Waters conducted research and performed public service in the Far East, Peru and Nicaragua. He was co-president of the Campus Y Center for Social Justice and a counsel on the student attorney general’s staff.
Also on the club cross country and track team, Waters played saxophone in the University Band. For two years, he was a team captain for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life fundraiser.
Waters formed partnerships with three Nicaraguan government agencies to gather data for his honors thesis. Last spring, he went to Nicaragua twice with support from the Morehead-Cain Discovery Fund, which supports scholars’ exploration of particular interests. In July, Waters will begin a year of work for the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Nicaragua.
Longino and Waters each will receive a trophy and $2,500 from USA Today.
Spelman, the son of Rosalie Spelman-Fallon of Swarthmore and the late John Spelman, majored in classical languages with a minor in creative writing and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
In both his junior and senior years, Spelman received the top University award for an undergraduate for translating Greek into English. Last year he won an award for his understanding and translation of Latin poetry. He edited UNC’s undergraduate literary magazine.
On one of Spelman’s Morehead-Cain summer experiences, he aided Burundian refugees in Tanzania, working with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. With Amnesty International, Spelman coordinated activism by about 30 high school students in the UNC area. He also led the UNC chapter.
Teegarden, the daughter of Darrell and Carol Teegarden of Lake Oswego, won a full, four-year merit scholarship to UNC. She majored in Latin American studies and Spanish with a minor in business administration in UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.
She graduated as a Public Service Scholar, having performed at least 300 hours of community service while at Carolina. She taught English to Latinas who worked in the campus dining hall. Teegarden was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
She studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, interned in Mexico City and won four UNC awards for internships and research abroad. This summer, Teegarden will begin work with Deloitte Strategy and Operations Consulting in Atlanta, a firm that does business in Latin America.
USA Today story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-06-09-AllUSA09_CV_N.htm
Office of Distinguished Scholarships Web site: http://www.distinguishedscholarships.unc.edu/
Photos: Longino: http://urxserve.ur.unc.edu/netpub/server.np?find&catalog=catalog&template=detail.np&field=itemid&op=matches&value=8397&site=Luminosity
Office of Distinguished Scholarships contact: Linda Dykstra, (919) 843-7757, ldykstra@unc.edu
News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589