The Carolina Women’s Leadership Council will host Shilpi Somaya Gowda, a bestselling author and UNC Morehead-Cain class of 1992 alumna, as the 2024 speaker for its Eve Marie Carson Lecture Series.
The lecture will take place on Feb. 22 in the Student Union's auditorium. The lecture series is a tribute to Carson, a former UNC student body president who was tragically murdered in 2008. She established the Distinguished Speakers Series of Student Government in 2007 as a student-run and student-selected lecture series.
Gowda said she plans to discuss how her experience as a student at UNC impacted the course of her life and the importance of being open to the unexpected while planning for the future.
“I thought really hard about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I felt like it was very important to get that choice right,” she said. “While it is important to think about that, I think it's also interesting to see how those twists and turns that come from unexpected places can end up charting your course.”
Gowda said she experienced the most growth when she ventured outside of her comfort zone, and eventually, she started seeking out moments of discomfort as sources of learning.
From traveling alone to feeling like an outsider when she was growing up in Canada and even into college, Gowda said she learned to see uncomfortable environments as opportunities to absorb different cultures and ways of living. Whether she was reading fictional books or people-watching, she said the times she was outside her comfort zone were when she learned the most.
Shelayne Sutton, executive committee member of CWLC, said Carson exemplified leadership and inclusivity to all people. CWLC’s goal with the lecture series is to reflect Carson’s values by inviting speakers who demonstrate leadership, optimism and determination to speak to the UNC community, Sutton said.
Approaching new things from a growth mindset was also something that Carson embodied, Natalie Alvarez, a friend of Carson, said. While it is easy to become siloed in a path of study, Alvarez said having a broad understanding of other fields is beneficial.
“It's really important to pursue a broad set of experiences and make connections outside of your field, because you just never know how it might inspire you,” Alvarez said. “That's what Eve really embraced — she just appreciated every unique person's perspective so much, and she always learned something from it.”
