Luther Hodges Scholars Nora Elsayed and Hunter Vaughan are in the business of making sports more inclusive. (Photo by Jen Hughey)
Luther Hodges Scholars are a passionate, well-rounded group of undergraduate students at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. Their academic achievements are impressive, but this group of students is more focused on improving the world than maximizing their GPAs.
As Luther Hodges Scholars, students receive a world-class scholarship experience that is aimed at developing future business leaders who are committed to the public good and have the skills to work across academia, public policy and the private sector.
Meet the scholars
Hunter Vaughan ’24 from Bermuda Run, North Carolina, is one such scholar. After participating in a mock government program offered through the YMCA called “Youth and Government” during high school, and observing the interactions between people of very different political beliefs, Vaughan entered Carolina as a public policy major. However, it took him a while to decide how he wanted to put what he was learning to use in the real-world.
“I wasn’t interested in traditional business paths when I got to Carolina, but at the end of my first year I learned that gaining business skills would best enable me to make an impact on the issues and organizations I cared about,” said Vaughan, on the decision to double major in public policy and business.
He completed all required pre-requisites that summer and was accepted his sophomore year into the UNC Kenan-Flagler Undergraduate Business Program and named a Kenan Scholar, now known as a Luther Hodges Scholar.
Elsayed teaches a young girl how to properly hold a field hockey stick at Evenin’ Out the Playing Field’s first diversity sports clinic, which took place at Karen Shelton Stadium at UNC-Chapel Hill. (Photo submitted by Nora Elsayed)
Nora Elsayed ’25 from Germantown, Maryland, also a Luther Hodges Scholar, grew up playing sports — first soccer, later field hockey and lacrosse — and she wanted to see a diversification of the sports she loved. During her first year at Carolina, she started a student organization called Evenin’ Out the Playing Field, which focuses on encouraging participation among women of color in predominantly white sports.
Around the same time that she launched her organization, Elsayed learned about the scholars program from another student who was a scholar at the time. As she shared her desire to pursue business with a focus on doing good, or, as she puts it, “do everything I love at once,” her friend encouraged her to look into the Luther Hodges Scholar program.
Working across sectors
The program prepares students to become future business leaders with a special emphasis on cross-sector collaboration, or training students to work in partnerships across business, the private sector, government and academia.
All Luther Hodges Scholars take a course their sophomore year that shares case studies and real-world examples of how large, successful companies are working across sectors. This training is further supplemented with speaker series, events and internship opportunities that allow students to directly interact with business leaders.
“It was so exciting to see the parallels between what I was learning in the program about how to work effectively across sectors and my efforts to get Evenin’ Out the Playing Field up and running, in partnership with the University and corporate sponsors,” said Elsayed, who has also authored and published a poetry collection titled “What’s Left of Me.”
Whole-person development
Funding from the Luther Hodges Scholars program has allowed both Elsayed and Vaughan to engage fully with the causes they care about most during their time at Carolina.
Since his freshman year Vaughan has worked with Because Baseball, a nonprofit that focuses on bringing baseball to Egypt and giving the Arab community a voice in international baseball. The organization’s work is fueled by the belief that sports can connect people in a way few other things can. After serving as the organization’s marketing intern for a year, Vaughan was able to stay on and expand his role to become their communications director, thanks to funding from the Luther Hodges Scholars program.
Vaughan and Kemp Gouldin, founder of Because Baseball (Photo submitted by Hunter Vaughan)
Funding from the Luther Hodges Scholars program also allowed Elsayed to travel to Bangkok, Thailand, and spend the summer after her sophomore year interning with the Kenan Foundation of Asia. During her time in Bangkok, one of Elsayed’s most valuable experiences was seeing the impact on rural primary schools as teachers used materials from the foundation. She witnessed teachers use these resources, which were funded by the foundation’s business partners, to improve how math is taught in their classrooms — moving away from memorization to teaching students how to think through the process as they solve equations.
“One of the most unique things about the Luther Hodges Scholars program is that it’s both professional and personal development,” said Elsayed. “There is lots of academic and professional development support out there, but this program has really supported my growth as a person throughout college.”
Luther Hodges Scholars have a dedicated staff member who is available for support and mentorship as students navigate internships, courses, future career plans and more.
“The advising I have received as a scholar has probably been the most valuable aspect of the program,” said Vaughan. “They have never pressured me toward any specific career path; I’ve always been able to chart my own path. But support and help has been available any time I need it.”
As for what comes next, Vaughan has already accepted a job at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, following graduation. He will move to Washington, D.C., next fall to work as a business analyst. Elsayed hopes to work in diversity, equity and inclusion-focused marketing after graduation, and to one day obtain a Master’s of Business Administration and eventually open her own marketing firm.
Carolina alumnus Luther Hodges ’57 made a naming gift to the Luther Hodges Scholars program in 2023. The transformational funding builds upon the success of the Kenan Institute’s previous undergraduate scholarship program, which was initiated in 2016 with support from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Fund.
Written by Audrey Smith ’10
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