Empowering the Future: First-Year Student Called by Queens’ Commitment to Service
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Going to college offers students a chance to become a new version of themselves while honoring their core characteristics. Sydney Kenton ’28 predicts that attending Queens University of Charlotte in the fall will support her in the next stages of her life. Kenton has a deep commitment to community empowerment and student resiliency and chose Queens because she expects to find classmates and instructors who will help her form close relationships with herself and her peers.
“I feel like Queens will encourage me to be my authentic self,” she said. Kenton wants to explore new ways to develop as a person and a student. She knows that by majoring in interior architecture and design she will learn to be good at giving and receiving feedback. She believes that the small classes and close instructor relations will give her the opportunities to evolve as a unique person with something to offer the world.
In fact, Kenton has already started on this path of serving others through a popular social media campaign that focused on the well-being of her peers through sharing mental health resources, motivation, and support. A ninth-grade creative writing project became the origin of her channel. “I wanted to create a project that would address mental health awareness that didn’t seem boring or uninviting,” she recalls.
At Queens, she intends to redesign and revisit the project. Keeping to her original intention of supporting student resiliency, Kenton plans to start a campus club or collaborate with her church to reach college students far and wide. She will be in the right place; Queens is committed to an interfaith perspective alongside its Presbyterian Pluralist roots. Kenton plans on working closely with the Chaplain’s office and other community-based spiritual groups to help turn her ideas into a thriving club on campus.
Kenton was also part of a philanthropic club in high school named Funding the Future. The goal of the club was to help teachers with classroom supplies or other school events. “We helped the drama club cover the costs of their winter play, Freaky Friday,” she said “They applied for a grant offered by Funding the Future to buy props and lighting equipment. They went on to have a successful show, and we were excited to be a part of that.”
Kenton is also interested in female empowerment causes. In her high school, she was instrumental in forming Girls Learn International, a club geared at combating challenges that girls face daily. One project addressed menstrual health. Kenton’s club gathered donations for menstrual supplies and offered advice for students who were embarrassed to ask their teachers questions. “With the help of our principal, Dr. Swenson, we made it possible to have period kits in almost every classroom in our school. Each basket included pads and tampons and were placed by each classroom door.”
At Queens, Kenton is looking forward to finding other classmates who share her purposefulness and who also aspire to be supportive. “I hope we affirm one another. I want to share experiences with them where we keep each other accountable but also motivate one another. Queens seems like a place where I can be brave and find new ways to develop as a student.” Kenton admits that sometimes she can be independent and shy, but she chose Queens because she knew it would reveal other sides of herself.
By Jennifer Daniel, Ph.D.