(Submitted photo)
Honors Carolina advisory board co-chair Brian Golson and his wife, Alisa, endowed the Golson Family Honors Carolina Scholarship as a recruiting tool for extraordinary students.
The inaugural recipient is Fareeda Akewusola ‘26, a first-year student from Houston, Texas, who had a choice of more than a dozen prestigious universities. She had narrowed the field to Carolina and the University of Chicago, both of which offered full-ride scholarships.
After visiting both, she said yes to Carolina on the spot.
She knew studying abroad was a must. She plans to declare neuroscience as her major and is applying for a neuropharmacology study abroad program in Australia in summer 2023.
Outside the classroom, Akewusola can rattle off a diverse list of activities she’s involved in — including the campus jiu-jitsu and wrestling clubs, the pre-health fraternity Alpha Epsilon Delta and the One Africa student organization.
She and the Golsons regularly stay in touch, and she has become friends with their daughter Kate, who is a sophomore at Carolina. “Most scholarships don’t come with relationships with donors and senior faculty,” said Akewusola. “It’s significant that I have an extended family here who I can talk with about anything.”
The Golsons are thrilled that their gift was instrumental in attracting Akewusola to Carolina.
Having a hand in enticing exceptional students to attend Carolina is incredibly rewarding, “and selfishly, we want them at UNC,” Alisa Golson said.