Alumni Connections March 2015

As a part of the Harvard women’s rugby team, Coca-Cola Scholars Helen Clark (2011) and Rachael Stein (2013), pictured center, took part in a photo shoot with their teammates to illustrate the supportive nature of the team and express body image positivity. Markers in hand, players wrote words of encouragement and admiration on each other, resulting in photos documented on their Tumbler, Rugged Grace, that tell a story of empowerment and celebration. Helen and her co-writers describe the motivation behind the project in an article in the Harvard Political Review:

“Words cannot adequately describe the liberating feeling that being a part of a team with such body positivity provides. Imagine the relief of taking a breath of fresh air after being drowned for so long in the pressure that society places on women to fit some unrealistic mold. Rugby, and our team in particular, only pressures players to utilize and to be proud of the parts of their bodies that make them unique.”

Rugged Grace has been featured on the Huffington Post, Time, and Today Health, and continues to inspire others.

Anjali Bhatla (2013) interned for Pamit Surana (1989) at Accenture last summer. “He invested a significant amount of time on me, teaching me the importance of intentionality, good communication skills, and reflecting on best practices to improve performance. He also consistently pushed me to become better, and the personal development that occurred while I worked with him has greatly improved my endeavors in college,” she said. Pamit said “Anjali was awesome… a lot of my colleagues still ask for her. Given she did so well, I have hired 2012 Scholar Manraj Singh for this summer.” If you are an alum who is interested in hiring a Coca-Cola Scholar, post your job listing in the Coca-Cola Scholar Alumni LinkedIn Group and email Carolyn.

Jason Feldman (1990) passed through the CVS pharmacy drive-thru in Greensboro and the pharmacist who was working at the window was none other than Bita Emrani (2006)!

The Scholars Foundation staff had the pleasure of visiting with Stacey Edmonson (1989) and Shardy Camargo (2009), who were visiting Atlanta for work conferences. Stacey is the Dean of the College of Education at Sam Houston State University in Texas, and Shardy works for Americorps in Florida.

Coca-Cola Scholar alums had a big presence at the Clinton Global Initiative University conference recently – Rudy Fernandez (1991), Spencer Lucker (2006), Nasir Uddin (2006), Clara Tsao (2009), Shejuti Paul (2011), Karishma Popli (2012),  Will Orton (2013), Ala Tineh (2013), Samuella Takyi-Buachie (2013), and Megan Rosenberger (2013) all met up in Miami between sessions. See pictures below: