Jackie Gonzalez

Jackie Gonzalez (Political Science ’18), a native of North Carolina, saw the necessity of giving back to her community at a very young age. As the daughter of two Costa Rican immigrants, she saw the value of diverse voices and has dedicated her life to decrease social and educational inequities. Gonzalez was the first in her family to attend a four-year institution and became NC State’s first Latinx Student Body President in 2017-2018. Since graduating, she has continued her interest in politics and has worked on several statewide political campaigns and at the General Assembly.
It was in student government where Jackie met Mitchell Moravec. Mitchell, a native of Ohio, found his student years at NC State were busy with volunteer work in addition to his engineering-psychology double major. He also served on the Student Senate for six years as an undergraduate and graduate student, including two terms as Student Senate President. During their years at NC State, Gonzalez and Moravec often found themselves on opposite sides of debates within Student Government. They also found themselves surrounded by important conversations and changes at the university and across the country. These years in Student Government culminated in the 97th session (2017-2018) in which Jackie served as the Student Body President alongside Mitchell, who served as Student Senate President. The challenges of the 97th session and on campus secured an invaluable bond of friendship and camaraderie between the two. Mitchell stated, ""This scholarship fund is an important intersection for me to support two components of NC State: the university that invested so much in me to succeed, and the people and mentors who were critical to my learning and growth.”
The Jackie Gonzalez Comunidad Latinx Scholarship endows, in perpetuity, a commitment to supporting the Latinx community and the diversity that is essential to NC State. Jackie and Mitchell acknowledge this is not an end point, but a motivational and intentional gift to inspire systemic prioritization of Latinx student populations and aspirations in academia.