Three students in the College of Arts and Sciences have been chosen to receive the Martin Luther King Jr. UNC Student Scholarship, an award open to juniors attending UNC-Chapel Hill. The scholarship is given annually to students who not only excel academically, but who embody King’s commitment to civil and human rights in their contributions to the community. Nominees were evaluated by the MLK Jr. Scholarship Committee.
The 31st annual scholarship awards were presented on Jan. 20. The finalist and grand-prize winner was Emilio Vicente.The two runner-up prizes were awarded to Sangeetha Kumar and Layla Quran.
Vicente is a public policy major from Siler City, N.C. who serves on both the Student Advisory Committee to the Chancellor and the Provost’s Committee on Inclusive Excellence and Diversity. He took a gap year before college to advocate for immigrants’ rights, and has continued his work at the Campus Y as co-chair of Students United for Immigrant Equality and as co-founder of North Carolina’s “One State, One Rate” campaign. Recently, he was profiled in a New York Times op-ed for his Student Body President Campaign. He was the runner up in a run-off this week. He is involved with the Scholars’ Latino Initiative, and is also an Admissions Ambassador, a Buckley Public Service Scholar, and a 2013 Sean Douglas Fellow at the Stone Center.
Kumar is an environmental science and mathematics major from Cary, N.C. She currently serves as co-president of the Daniel Okun chapter of Engineers without Borders. She is also co-founder and president of Science Days, a mentoring program aimed at fostering interest in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields among minorities that are often underrepresented in the sciences.
Quran, a global studies major and Buckley Public Service Scholar from Greenville, N.C., is the co-director of Outreach for the Campus Y, and has dedicated herself to promoting social justice on campus with work like the Beyond Coal and SAFER (Survivors & Allies for Empowerment and Reform) Carolina initiatives. She came to the U.S. from East Jerusalem when she was four years old, and has since returned to her birthplace to research the role art plays in Palestine as a form of protest and cultural expression. She has conducted similar research in Istanbul, Turkey, and led a civil-rights themed Alternative Spring Break trip to Birmingham, Alabama.
The MLK Scholarship is administered by the MLK Scholarship Committee made up of students, faculty, and staff at the University and is coordinated by UNC Diversity and Multicultural Affairs (DMA).
Read more about the scholarship award winners.
