Carolina Covenant scholars celebrate 20 years of program

This year, the Carolina Covenant program — which provides full academic scholarships for underserved students — is celebrating its 20th anniversary. In honor of this milestone, this Thursday evening UNC hosted author Anthony Abraham Jack at the Student Union.

Jack, an author of two books discussing the inequalities present in college education, spoke to a crowd about the importance of presenting equal career opportunities in college.

“I argue we know far too little about how students get the jobs they do, and how social class shapes and plays a role in that process,” Jack said at the event. 

Having completed his undergraduate studies at Amherst College, Jack himself was not a Carolina Covenant scholar. He was introduced at the talk by Jayne Davis,  a former UNC student who is now the Director of Scholar Well-Being at UNC. During her introduction, Davis said that Jack’s work has inspired the “Covenant Model of Care,” which she describes as being UNC’s approach to support and care for scholars.

While the program has come a long way in its 20 years, its mission of providing students the opportunity to graduate from UNC debt-free has remained constant.

Lorenzo Hopper, a former Covenant Scholar who graduated in 2010, said that while the financial aid provided by the program was a “relief” that allowed him to focus on his studies, the Covenant program offered him much more than just money.

“It was just the sense of belonging that I started to get from going to some of those early meet-and-greet sessions,” Hopper said. “The most memorable moments were those opportunities to engage with the community of scholars and mentors."

During his time in the program, Hopper was informally mentored by Candice Powell, a graduate student at NC State, who now serves as the director of Carolina Covenant. Hopper said that Powell was like a big sister to him, saying that she has had a tremendous impact on Carolina Covenant through her leadership.

Sage Albert, a Covenant scholar who graduated in 2022, said that the program provided her with many opportunities to do things like meet donors, attend etiquette dinners and get professional headshots.

“A lot of the students who go to UNC come from extremely wealthy backgrounds, and so there was a little bit of imposter syndrome where you're like, ‘Okay, I didn't grow up like this. I don't have the resources,’” Albert said. “I feel like Covenant made me feel at least more on an equal playing field as everyone else, where I didn't feel like I had to say, ‘No, I can't do that because I can't afford it.’”

Similar to Albert, Stacy Zhang, a Covenant scholar who now works as an assistant professor at NC State, said that the Carolina Covenant program, through its variety of resources, has served as an “escalator towards opportunity” for scholars.

Zhang said that students from disadvantaged backgrounds often display grit.

“To know that that determination can go towards striving for academic or scholarly excellence and not towards figuring out where your next meal is going to be, or whether or not college is even an opportunity, means that there's so many more possibilities for students to think about,” Zhang said.

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