Alumna named Rhodes Scholar

Months of preparation recently paid off for a UNC alumnus after she endured a brutal application process and became the 38th UNC graduate to win the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship.

Rachel Mazyck, graduate of the class of 2002, is the third UNC student in as many years to receive the award, which provides full tuition, board, living expenses and travel expenses at Oxford University in England.

Officials selected Mazyck out of a pool of 904 applicants from 341 universities.

"This signals that students at UNC can compete successfully with the best students at any American university and their academic courses, projects, honors theses, et cetera have ably prepared them for this competition," said George Lensing, director of the Office of Distinguished Scholarships.

UNC ranks second among American public universities in the number of Rhodes Scholars it has produced.

The award capped an illustrious academic career for Mazyck. She received the Morehead Scholarship at age 16 and made her presence felt during her three years at the University.

"She was very, very poised," said English Professor Trudier Harris, who advised Mazyck during the Rhodes Scholarship application process and supervised her honors thesis. "She was very much an open and, dare I say, charming student."

During her time at the University, Mazyck co-founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Leadership Day Committee, which brought more than 100 children to UNC to participate in leadership-building activities. She also served as a resident assistant and a member of the Honor Court.

After graduating with highest honors in English in 2002, Mazyck joined the Teach for America program, a national service corps of recent college graduates who teach in low-income communities. Mazyck spent two years in Indianola, Miss., teaching fourth-graders.

She now is pursuing a master's degree in educational policy and management at Harvard University.

Mazyck said she plans on using her experience and the scholarship to pursue a reform of U.S. education policy by earning a degree in philosophy and specializing in educational studies while at Oxford.

"We need to work toward closing the achievement gap between minority and white students in the United States," she said.

Mazyck is atypical of a Rhodes Scholar applicant in that she didn't attend the University during the application process.

Faculty members provided her with a regular flow of potential questions and assisted her with practice interviews, as well as general advising on the process.

She said faculty members were essential in helping her develop the analytical skills that eventually made her a Rhodes Scholar.

"I'm incredibly grateful to all of the people who invested in my life," she said. "I wouldn't possess the knowledge and skills I have without their assistance."

Lensing said he believes Mazyck will have a major impact on the country.

"Her intelligence and poise all single her out as an extraordinary woman who will make a major contribution to the future of public education in this country."

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.