UNC-Chapel Hill graduate students Verdant Julius and Caroline Eason joined Dean Beth Mayer-Davis in a daylong visit with legislators during Graduate School Education Day on May 21.
Graduate Education Day, an annual event held at the North Carolina General Assembly, offers North Carolina graduate schools an opportunity to advocate for the value of graduate education with North Carolina elected officials.
The trio met with six elected representatives to discuss their scholarship, their aspirations, and the vital connection between UNC-Chapel Hill and the state’s future workforce.
Julius, a student at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, studies environmental factors impacting pregnant mothers in North Carolina, such as water and air quality contamination.
Julius chose this course of study because of his experiences growing up. “Seeing the things my single mother had to go through made me want to learn how to help,” he said. “Seeing how vulnerable they are and how they are never at the center of political discourse.”
Eason, a student in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is a third generation Tar Heel pharmacist. Her father and grandfather, both Eshelman graduates, founded family pharmacies in western North Carolina. Her experience working in those pharmacies imbued in her a desire to continue the family business.
“I saw what pharmacists do and what healthcare is like in small rural communities where the pharmacy is crucial to healthcare,” she said.
Mayer-Davis, Julius, and Eason met with:
- NC state Senator Gladys Robinson (D)
- NC state Senator Bradley Overcash (R)
- NC state Senator Benton Sawrey (R)
- NC state Senator Mike Woodard (D)
- NC state Representative Wayne Sasser (R)
- NC state Senator Rachel Hunt (D)
Sen. Mike Woodard was among the legislators sympathetic to Eason’s assessment of rural pharmacies, and to the need to help them compete with large pharmacy chains.
“A lot of times you can be the primary healthcare providers your customers see, especially in rural communities,” Woodard said.
Julius told state Sen. Benton Sawrey that he felt indebted to UNC and to the state of North Carolina for the educational opportunities he has had at UNC-Chapel Hill.
“I want to work together to help communities in North Carolina,” he said.
Sawrey agreed with the importance of “getting practitioners to communities,” a subject about which Mayer-Davis is passionate.
She talked to Sawrey and the other legislators about the need to align workforce needs in North Carolina with the realities of graduate education, advocating for expanding and refining the Forgivable Education Loans for Service (FELS) program. “This program could help meet the needs of rural communities by reducing the debt accrued by students who are willing to bring their expertise to rural communities where the need is great but the pay isn’t commensurate with student debt,” Mayer-Davis said.
State Rep. Wayne Sasser — an independent pharmacist for 40 years before running for office — also agreed with Eason’s appraisal of the importance of local pharmacies and had some general advice for both students.
“Get all the education you can get,” she said. “Whether you use it or not, it doesn’t make you stupider. You’re going to have opportunities because of your education. Take advantage of those opportunities!”