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Juniors Mark Clarke and Zachary De La Rosa have been named 2011 Eve Carson Scholars at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the scholarship selection committee and Student Government have announced.

The award funds half the cost of attending Carolina in their senior year, plus $5,000 each for a summer enrichment experience.

Clarke, of Fairview in Buncombe County, is majoring in English in the College of Arts and Sciences, with minors in history and creative writing.

De La Rosa, of Raleigh, is double majoring in mathematics and economics in the College of Arts and Sciences with a minor in philosophy.

The nine-member selection committee of students, faculty, staff and alumni chose Clarke and De La Rosa from among 95 applicants.

Clarke, a 2008 graduate of A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, is the son of Betsy and Douglas Clark. Growing up on a farm that has been in his family for generations, Clarke gained a passion for food, the process that it goes through before it reaches our plates and its integral place in building a community. 

He helped start the Carolina Campus Community Garden over the past year and a half. The garden grows fresh, organic, inexpensive produce for housekeepers and other low-wage UNC staff members. It also helps strengthen relationships between students and UNC staff.

Clarke hopes to spend part of his Eve Carson Scholarship Summer Experience involving local at-risk teens in the garden.

He loves helping build community, either through gardening or in his work as the Outreach and Service Chair at the Reformed University Fellowship at UNC. In his spare time, Clarke plays the harmonica in a band and spends as much time gardening and with friends as possible.

De La Rosa, a 2008 graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Math, is the son of Mark and Carol De La Rosa. He helped start the economic development center of the Carolina chapter of the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network. He believes that economics and access to money help people realize their dignity as humans. De La Rosa’s peers recently elected him president of the Carolina chapter.

De La Rosa hopes to spend his summer experience working with a micro-finance initiative internationally. He wants to better understand the real-life effects of poverty in other countries so that his study of economic development is more tangible and applicable.

De La Rosa has overcome hearing problems and taught sign language to students in the Triangle. He has not let his hearing problems as a child stop him from becoming a strong public speaker. He is a senator in the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies – a student debate and literary group – chair of the rules and judiciary committee of Student Congress and a member of the choir at the Newman Catholic Student Center.

The Eve Carson Scholarship was established in 2008 in memory of Eve Carson, UNC’s 2007-2008 student body president, who died in March 2008. One of what she called her “Big Ideas” as president was to create a merit-based scholarship for UNC juniors.

The scholarship honors students who have demonstrated transformative growth while at Carolina by taking advantage of the resources offered. Through this growth, they have gained self-awareness that enabled them to find their passion and use it to contribute to their community in a lasting and meaningful way.

“Mark and Zach characterize the idea of excellence with a heart that both former Chancellor James Moeser and Eve spoke about,” said Katherine Novinski, a senior from Irving, Texas, and Carson scholarship  director. “They have found ways to contribute to their community by developing into the best individuals they can be. At the same time, they maintain an outward focus on how they can improve the lives of others within the community.”

Carson Scholarship website: http://evecarsonscholarship.unc.edu/

Note: Clarke can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or (828) 808-4629; De La Rosa, at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   or (919) 599-4186; Novinski, at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or (214) 783-0778.

News Service contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589