Eva McKend

Hometown: New York, N.Y.
High School: Birch Wathen Lenox School
Intended Major: English literature
Minors: Religion, Black Studies
Possible Career: Journalism

Over the past four years, Eva has put her passion for issues related to diversity and social justice to work. The summer after her freshman year, she used the Evans opportunity grant towards directed research at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Eva audited the graduate level course, Black Adolescents, and created the initiative A Campaign for Me. The viral campaign challenges us to reconceptualize how we think about black women.

Eva spent the following summer as an editorial intern at Ms. magazine in Beverly Hills, where she wrote for the publication and the blog, fact-checked articles, helped select books for review, and negotiated radio interviews for journalists. For her work at the magazine, she was recognized as a "Youth Hero" by the Advocates for Youth "Amplify your Voice" blog. After spending her junior year in London, where she continued her research and hosted her own radio show, The Politics of Race in London, she returned to New York for an internship with Essence Magazine. She also took classes through Media Bistro (Final Cut Pro, Breaking into Online Writing, TV News Reporting), which gave her the practical knowledge she needed to edit the extensive video footage she has taken throughout her research for A Campaign for Me. Inspired by Soledad O'Brien and the CNN series In America, Eva is now pursuing a career in Broadcast Journalism. She is currently spending 16 hours a week an an intern for NBC Philadelphia — (WCAU-TV) in addition to her full Swarthmore course load. This semester she also managed press outreach responsibilities for the national Sudan Freedom Walk, an effort by a former Sudanese slave to call attention to genocide and slavery. The walk was covered by CNN, Washington Times, Huffington Post, NBC 10 (WCAU), WMMR Philadelphia and various blogs and student publications.

Before coming to Swarthmore, Eva had traveled to Spain, Morocco, Senegal, Brazil, Japan and China. After graduation she can add Australia, England, France and Aegina, Greece to her list.

For more information on A Campaign for Me, you can refer to the following links:
http://twitter.com/acampaignforme
http://acampaignforme.blogspot.com
http://www.swarthmorephoenix.com/authors/eva-mckend