Clark Family Scholarship supports students from the Southeast

Josh Clark ’94, ’95 (MAC) grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. With only 60-some students in his high school graduating class, Clark wanted to attend a large state school for college — somewhere with strong academics and a lively environment.  

As a senior, he toured schools from Vanderbilt University to the University of Virginia, and eventually, Carolina. The same year, Clark tore his MCL playing soccer, so several tours took place on crutches.  

“When we went to Charlottesville to tour UVA, it was rainy and cold. We had this tour guide that talked really fast and walked really fast, and I couldn’t keep up. My dad had gone to law school there, so I thought he maybe wanted me to go,” said Clark. “The next day we went down to Chapel Hill. We had this tour guide who was a soccer player. She was so kind and empathetic, and the tour and the weather were so much better. In my 17-year-old mind, I was like, ‘UVA is out.’” And UNC-Chapel Hill was in.

Thirty-one years since graduating, Clark is giving back to the school that, he believed, put him on the right path. The Clark Family Scholarship provides a full scholarship with enrichment opportunities, like study abroad and internship funding, to students primarily from Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana. This year, Carolina welcomed its first recipient: first-year student Cassie van Riessen.

From the Delta to the Triangle

Van Riessen is also from Mississippi. Her rural hometown of Cleveland is two hours northwest of Jackson and has only a third of Carolina’s student population. It’s located in the state’s Delta region, known for its flat landscape, humid climate and, van Riessen added, beautiful sunsets.  

Van Riessen’s childhood was colored by the Delta’s environment and culture. Her father, a Holland native, works with the agricultural aviation program at Delta State University, and her mother is an animal behaviorist. They spent their free time outdoors, visiting places like Dockery Farms, widely accepted as the birthplace of the blues.  

Van Riessen is also an artist. “There’s a very strong arts community in Mississippi. I love the arts and do a lot of painting, sewing and knitting. The Delta helped me cultivate that,” said van Riessen. For the past eight years, she and her mom have also painted faces at events. “Something that I love about art is that you don’t need to be at a certain education level or anything to be able to connect through it, which is really nice.” 

As a junior, she transferred to the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.

“I was very involved in the community in Cleveland and got to do a lot. I was a resident artist at the Delta Arts Alliance,” said van Riessen. “But I also felt I had hit the ceiling there, which is why I went to MSMS. I didn’t want to hit the ceiling; I wanted to be able to grow and see what else I could do.”

For college, that meant exploring what the world had to offer outside Mississippi. Carolina was on her radar after she connected with Robertson scholars at her church in Cleveland. Despite her passion for the arts, van Riessen envisioned a career in health or medicine, inspired by her upbringing in the Delta. Carolina and its strong academic programs were a pathway forward.

“Because the Delta is so agricultural, there are a lot of burning fields and other things we’re doing with our resources which affect health,” said van Riessen. As a rising high school senior, she shadowed a rural physician and general surgeon in the state. “I was able to see a diverse group of patients from different areas. Some didn’t understand how vaccines or antibiotics work, and that’s really important for self-advocation in healthcare. That’s something that is really interesting to me that I would want to help change.”

Just two months into her education at Carolina, van Riessen has already started on that path. She is majoring in environmental health sciences within the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health with a minor in studio art. She is part of the second cohort of Carolina Across 100 Impact Fellows, serves as an event coordinator for Art Way Forward, a club that integrates art into healthcare, and is a part of the UNC Swim Club and Carolina Marathon Team. In the spring, she’ll spend a semester abroad through Carolina Spring Forward at the University of New South Wales in Australia.  

Van Riessen has been able to dive into life at Carolina in large part thanks to the full scholarship the Clark Family Scholarship offered. While van Riessen’s parents encouraged her to attend college where she thought she’d thrive, the cost of out-of-state tuition paired with wanting to attend medical school weighed heavily on van Riessen’s mind. Getting into UNC-Chapel Hill and being awarded the scholarship made the next four years easier to bear.  

Paying it forward

“I wanted to do something to honor my parents. I grew up in a household that valued education,” said Clark about founding the scholarship at Carolina. His parents still live in his childhood home in Mississippi. “They wanted me to make good grades. My mom was an English teacher before I was born, and my dad was a lawyer. They got me started on the right path, and I felt like UNC contributed.”

Clark, now a married father of three living in New York, still looks back on his time at Carolina fondly.  

“I loved Chapel Hill,” said Clark. “I loved it so much.”  

He graduated from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School with a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s degree in accounting. Over the years, he’s stayed in touch with many of the friends he made in Chapel Hill. This summer, he attended the UNC-TCU game in Ireland with someone he met at orientation in his first year at Carolina.  

Giving back to the places where he got his start, back home in Mississippi and in college at Carolina, is what the Clark Family Scholarship is all about.

“I just hope it gets some kids off on a good path,” said Clark.