Jenna Mayer
Wake Forest University
Jenna Mayer is a third-year student at Wake Forest University. She is a student leader in many regards, but more importantly she is a passionate community advocate. She has integrated her scholarly interests in political science and elementary education with her commitment to improving literacy rates for young children within our community. These combined efforts and interests have led her to partner with two local area schools, and a local community organization. In addition, she has leveraged her membership in Student Government to make literacy and tutoring a focus of her fellow Student Government representatives. To this end, she is currently working on expanding these efforts by attempting to increase the number of tutors from Wake Forest, as well as building partnerships between a new local non-profit focusing on childhood literacy and the schools in which she already has a relationship.
Personal Statement
I have been heavily involved in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County (WSFCS) school district during my time at Wake Forest as both a volunteer and as an education major. In my role in Student Government as the Campus Life committee co-chair, my co-chair and I started an engagement project between Student Government and Paisley IB Magnet School. We created a club at the school for 6th graders called the Paisley Leadership Academy. The club is specifically geared towards 6th grade because the school expressed a need for after-school programs for those students. The primary way that I have addressed issues of inequality is through volunteering within and with organizations connected to WSFCS. I have also been a consistent volunteer tutor with Old Town Elementary School and Latino Community Services. I am passionate about reducing educational inequities in communities and have learned that the best way to gain the knowledge needed to work on these issues as a fairly new member of the community is to just involve myself as much as I can in order to build a network within the community.
