Established in 2023, the Merritt Moseley Community Award is supported by the Phyllis Betts and Richard Janikowski Fund. Emeritus Professor of English Merritt Moseley was a long-time professor and Director of the Honors Program, and co-founded Bulldog Day in 1997, where the University Community comes together to give back. It is given to the graduating Honors student who best exemplifies engagement and participation in the Honors Program. Recipients of this award may demonstrate outstanding commitment to the Honors Program through planning and attending co-curricular and extracurricular activities, leadership in Honors-related organizations, and service opportunities related to the Honors Program.
Honors Program Scholarships & Awards
University Honors Program Scholarships
UNC Asheville’s University Honors Program offers scholarships and awards that recognize academic excellence, leadership, and community engagement. These opportunities support honors students in pursuing meaningful research, creative projects, and experiential learning, while celebrating their commitment to scholarship and service.
University Honors Programs Scholarships
University Honors Program Students are eligible for the most prestigious scholarships that UNC Asheville offers.
*The inaugural cohort will be selected in the Spring of 2025 from among the members of the class of 2028*
Robin Woodward Scholars are chosen from among rising sophomore S.T.E.M. majors who are members of the University Honors Program
Scholars receive $10,000 in scholarship funding each year for 3 years, plus an additional $10,000 to support high-impact learning experiences such as internships, study abroad, or undergraduate research.
Scholarship applications are open from March 1st to March 31st, and the following steps apply:
1) Fill out the general scholarship application on your portal
2) If you are eligible (see below), you will be able to select to apply to the Robin Woodward Distinguished Scholarship
3) Write and submit responses to the personal statement requests for this scholarship
4) You will then be invited to an interview in April
5) Final scholarships will be announced in mid-May once spring grades are recorded
Eligibility: The scholarship portal will tell you whether you are eligible or not. Here are the criteria:
Rising sophomores who plan to attend UNCA for 3 more years starting the upcoming fall (Sophomore year,
Junior year, Senior year)
You must have already declared your major before the end of March
You must be a declared STEM major
You must meet other requirements to be eligible for scholarships
You must be performing extremely well academically
Dr. R. Graham Reynolds is the Robin Woodward ’69 Distinguished Scholars Advisor
*The final cohort was selected from among the members of the class of 2026*
Selby and Richard McRae Scholars were selected from among all incoming first-year students
Scholars receive $10,000 in scholarship funding each year for 4 years, plus an additional $10,000 to support high-impact learning experiences such as internships, study abroad, or undergraduate research.
This scholarship is not currently accepting applications.
Dr. R. Graham Reynolds is the Selby and Richard McRae Scholars Advisor
Student Awards
Awardees are selected every Spring before Commencement.
The Phyllis Betts Founders Award is supported by The Phyllis Betts and Richard Janikowski Fund in honor of Phyllis Betts, who founded the UNC Asheville Honors Program in 1985. It is given annually to a graduating University Honors Scholar who most embodies the liberal arts ideal of polymathematics and well-roundedness, having excelled in distinct and often distant fields of study.
The Arnold Wengrow Founders Award is supported by The Phyllis Betts and Richard Janikowski Fund in honor of Arnold Wengrow, Professor Emeritus of Drama and tireless advocate for UNC Asheville. It is awarded to one or more graduating University Honors Scholars who have excelled in their coursework, as well as improved the experience of their peers through service and dedication to UNC Asheville more broadly.
Goldwater and Marshall Scholarships
The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Marshall Scholarship are highly competitive, extramural support opportunities that students at UNC Asheville may be nominated to apply for. Faculty wishing to nominate a student should contact the UNC Asheville Representative for these scholarships, Dr. R. Graham Reynolds (Director of the Honors Program), at honors@unca.edu to proceed.
Students who are interested in being nominated for these scholarships should reach out to their Department Chair, who will contact Dr. Reynolds directly. Please keep in mind that students need to take a lot of initiative to pursue these prestigious and competitive scholarships.
The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is a Congressional scholarship to support sophomore and junior students pursuing education and research in the natural sciences (STEM majors). About 450 Goldwater Scholars are selected from across US undergraduate institutions each year. The scholarship award covers eligible expenses up to a maximum of $7,500 per year. Rising junior scholarship recipients can expect to receive a maximum of two years of support. Rising senior scholarship recipients are eligible for a maximum of one year of support.
UNC Asheville typically nominates only one or two students per year to apply. Applications are due on the last day of January each year.
The Marshall Scholarship provides an opportunity for US-based undergraduates to pursue graduate study in the United Kingdom. Only about 50 students from across the US are selected each year.
UNC Asheville typically does not nominate a student each year, but we do submit a nominee every few years. Nevertheless, this is a fantastic scholarship opportunity for the right student. Marshall Scholarships are typically due in mid-September each year.
UNC Asheville has had five Goldwater Scholarship recipients in the last five years!
Goldwater Scholars
2023 Dylan Major (B.S. Atmospheric Sciences, B.S. Computer Science, Minor in Mathematics)
2023 Ari Puentes (B.S. Biology, Minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies)
2021 Grace Volk (B.S. Chemistry, student-athlete)
2020 Mallory Rothrock (B.S. Chemistry, Minor in Neuroscience)
2018 Blanton Gillespie (B.S. Chemistry, Minor in Neuroscience, student-athlete)
Manly E. Wright Award for Scholarship
The Manly E. Wright Award is the valedictory award presented to the graduate who ranks first in scholarship at the May commencement ceremony. Per UNC Asheville’s tradition, the Manley E. Wright Award winner receives their degree on a silver platter.
Manly Wright was one of the key figures in the history of UNC Asheville. He served as a long-time member of the Board of Trustees of Asheville-Biltmore College and was Chairman of the Board during two crucial periods in the history of the university: when it became a four-year institution in 1964 and when it joined the University of North Carolina System in 1969. Mr. Wright was the one who, in 1958, scouted farmland north of the Montford neighborhood and negotiated with Landon Roberts and heirs of the Kimberley Estate, for the sale of nearly 100 acres that would become the new permanent home of UNC Asheville as it moved down from Seeley Castle on Town Mountain. Mr. Wright pleaded with the Carlyle Commission in 1962 to award Asheville-Biltmore College status as a 4-year school under the Omnibus Higher Education Act of 1963. In 1965, Mr. Wright brought greetings to the first graduating class of the new 4-year institution. When Mr. Wright passed away in 1979, the top student award was renamed from the Cecil L. Reid Academic Award to the Manly E. Wright Scholarship Award by Mrs. Elizabeth Wright, the daughter of Mr. Reid and wife of Mr. Wright. The first recipient of this award was Helen Bobo, a 1966 graduate.
Ona Elkins, a double major in Political Science and International Studies, was the recipient of the 2024 Manly E. Wright Scholarship Award. A four-year member of the women ‘s Division I volleyball team, she served as Captain her senior year, finishing an outstanding career, completing 293 sets and more than 500 assists. She was recognized as the Big South Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2023, selected for theConference All-AcademicTeam in 2022, named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team in both 2022 and 2023, and awarded the George Christenberry Award by the Big South Conference. As an athlete, Ona served as a representative on the Student-AthleteAdvisoryCouncil, as a member of the Leadership Council, as an active member of the Leaders for Leaders program, and was selected for the XAE National Athletic Honor Society. Ona was selected for the PoliticalScience Honors Society and was a member of the Political Science Club for four years, serving as both Treasurer and President. In 2023, she was selected as a SECU Public Fellows Intern, where she spent the summer working as a policy research intern in the NC State Legislature with Representative Eric Ager (NC-14).
Sam Shepard, a chemistry major and neuroscience minor and a member of the University Honors Program, was selected as this year’s student speaker. With an overall GPA of 4.0, Sam was one of only 10 national recipients of the Marion B. Sewer Distinguished Scholarship for Undergraduates awarded by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. They have also been accepted as a Research Training Award Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, joining the laboratory of Dr. Robert Seder at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, MD, whose lab played a critical role in developing the Moderna mRNA vaccine.
Grace Volk, a chemistry major and Division I volleyball player, entered the chemistry program at UNC Asheville as a North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Scholar, which introduced her to the Chemistry Department’s rigorous research program in her first year. Volk is also a UNC Asheville Chemistry Scholar, funded by the National Science Foundation; a member of the Honors Program; and has played on the volleyball team since her first year.
In 2021, Volk was awarded a Goldwater Scholarship, the preeminent national scholarship awarded to undergraduates studying the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics. Her research with Associate Professor of Chemistry Amanda Wolfe has been published with Volk as a co-author, titled, “Advances in antibiotic drug discovery: reducing the barriers for antibiotic development” in Future Medicinal Chemistry (2020). After graduating from UNC Asheville, Volk will pursue a medical degree at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and become a doctor. In the future, she hopes to further her study in the antibiotic resistance of bacteria such as E. coli and S. aureus.
A biology major with a minor in mathematics, Alyssa Vanerelli was one of only eight students accepted into the 2019 Harvard University cohort of the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program. The project she completed at Harvard produced findings that were then presented at Harvard, the Leadership Alliance National Symposium in Hartford, Connecticut and the Society for Systematic Biologists Annual Meeting in Gainesville, Florida, a conference of some of the top biologists in the nation including UNC Asheville faculty member and Alyssa’s advisor Dr. Graham Reynolds.
A physics major from Horse Shoe N.C. just a half-hour south of Asheville, with minors in astronomy and mathematics, Samantha Creech’s fascination with the cosmos began just a few years before she began college. Creech worked closely with faculty mentor Britt Lundgren, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, looking for patterns in the large scale winds produced by galaxies due to supernova explosions, to shed light on how galaxies grow and evolve over time. She has presented their findings at two of the world’s largest professional astronomy conference, is one of the lead co-authors of a coming peer-reviewed article on galactic evolution in the early universe, and is interning as a science writer for Physics Today.
On campus, Creech also served as president of the University’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students, and as a docent at Lookout Observatory, and earned the Astronomy Club of Asheville-Carolyn Keefe Scholarship. She also was office supervisor for UNC Asheville’s Outdoor Programs and became a trip leader for backpacking, mountain biking, and climbing expeditions.
A chemistry major and neuroscience minor, and member of the cross country and track and field teams, Blanton Gillespie graduated with a 3.996 GPA. He is a four-time Big South Scholar Athlete of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious undergraduate scholarships in the natural sciences. He has published three papers in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, completed NASA fellowships, and plans to study medicine, then practice rural medicine in underserved Western North Carolina communities.
Olivia Godfrey began conducting research during her first year on campus. “During freshman orientation, I visited the Psychology Department table and chatted with Dr. Melissa Smith about my interest in majoring in the program,” recalled Godfrey. “Two months later, I was sitting in her developmental psychology classroom, with a growing appreciation for research in human behavior, health, and mental processes. Dr. Smith gave me the opportunity to conduct independent undergraduate research, and mentored me through the grant application, presentation, and publication process for our project.”
Godfrey will pursue a Master of Arts in experimental psychology at Appalachian State University, working under a grant from the National Institute on Aging to research cognition, memory, and health in older adulthood. She also received the William and Ida Friday Award for outstanding service to the community.
Dylan Cromer earned a full scholarship to Cornell University where he will pursue a doctorate in theoretical astronomy, having had the goal to be a research scientist since arriving at UNC Asheville. “I had in mind becoming a research scientist so that I could spend my time studying a subject I love,” said Cromer speaking to his fellow graduates. “But at UNC Asheville, through all the people around me and the experiences I’ve had, I learned that this isn’t all I want to do. I want to have a meaningful social impact on the world.”
Emily Lanier graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with distinction in chemistry, distinction as a University Scholar and as a University Research Scholar, and summa cum laude honors. Lanier spent three years researching new methods of synthesizing new antibiotics for the next generation of resistant bacterial infections and presented her work at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. She also served as a writing consultant at the University Writing Center.
Kelly Olshan graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with distinction in art, distinction as a University Scholar and as a University Research Scholar, and summa cum laude honors. She also served as a writing consultant at the University Writing Center for three years and as president for the student organization Art Front, and she is a member of the Phi Eta Sigma National Honors Society.
Zoe Hamel double-majored in mathematics and economics and graduated with distinction in both major areas, distinction as a University Research Scholar, and summa cum laude honors. Hamel will pursue graduate studies in the fall at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she has been offered a research fellowship in pure mathematics.
A native of Sedan, France, Hamel came to UNC Asheville for a rigorous academic experience and a chance to play competitive Division I tennis. She became captain of the women’s tennis team and number one Bulldog player in singles and doubles, and made the Big South All-Academic Team her junior and senior years. Hamel also cultivated an interest in food economics, conducting undergraduate research on the impact of interactions between farmers and consumers at tailgate markets.