Ebony Dixon, a University of Mary Washington political science and theater double major, was selected as a Shawn Carter Scholar for the 2014-2015 academic year.<\/p>
Shawn Carter — better known as rapper Jay-Z — provides yearly grants from $1,500 to $2,500 to help college students pay for tuition and other educational expenses through his foundation.<\/p>
“This scholarship means the world to me,” said Dixon, who is a senior from Alexandria, Virginia. “I am especially thankful because it was unexpected and I was selected from a competitive pool of applicants.”<\/p>
According to the Shawn Carter Foundation website, this program was created to give individuals facing socio-economic hardships the opportunity to further their education. Dixon has personally overcome several obstacles while obtaining her degree, including the death of her father.<\/p>
“I continued to go to school despite my financial and academic struggles,” Dixon said. “The largest tragedy I had to overcome, which I still haven’t fully recovered from, was the death of my father in 2012. Continuing my education showed them that I was very resilient and determined.”<\/p>
All Shawn Carter Scholars are required to give back by conducting community service and by serving as mentors to younger, aspiring Shawn Carter Scholars.<\/p>
Dixon plans to join the Peace Corps after graduation and eventually seek her master of fine arts degree. She has aspirations of becoming a playwright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ebony Dixon, a University of Mary Washington political science and theater double major, was selected as a Shawn Carter Scholar for the 2014-2015 academic year.Shawn Carter — better known as rapper Jay-Z — provides yearly grants from $1,500 to $2,500 to help college students pay for tuition and other educational expenses through his foundation.“This scholarship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5871,"featured_media":98501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[322,730,8953],"class_list":["post-98131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-whats-new-umw","tag-department-of-theatre-and-dance","tag-political-science","tag-scholarships","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}