North Carolina student who excels in and out of classroom earns $100,000 Tusculum scholarship

GREENEVILLE – Emma Harriman demonstrates regularly that the civic arts and civic engagement elements of Tusculum University’s mission drive many of her actions.

Emma Harriman

Bringing a lengthy record of initiative and service to others, Emma will join the Tusculum family in the fall semester as a freshman seeking degrees in computer science and mathematics. She comes to Tusculum with impressive academic credentials – a 32 on her ACT, a 1430 on her SAT and a 4.48 weighted grade point average at Southwest Guilford High School in High Point, North Carolina.

Tusculum is welcoming Emma with a scholarship worth more than $100,000. She has earned the Trustee Honors Scholarship, the university’s most prestigious and highest academic honor. Recipients must have at least a 3.5 grade point average and at least a 28 on their ACT to earn the scholarship.

“Emma is an outstanding student with a thorough understanding of the value and importance of helping others,” said Dr. Scott Hummel, Tusculum’s president. “I am confident she will unleash her full potential working with our excellent faculty and participating in many community service opportunities. We are thrilled to have Emma as our newest Pioneer and look forward to seeing her excel.”

Dr. Hummel and representatives of the Tusculum admissions team congratulated Emma during a recent Zoom meeting to celebrate her scholarship. She was flanked by her mother, Sarah, and father, Mike, who was wearing a Tusculum shirt for the occasion.

Emma, who will also play soccer at Tusculum, said she learned about the university when her father mentioned it while they were on a recruiting trip at another school. At Tusculum, she met head soccer coach Mike Joy, liked him and came back for a weekend visit. What clinched her decision was meeting with Dr. Merve Kester Thomas, chairwoman of the mathematics department.

“From the moment I started talking with her, she had me hooked,” Emma said. “Tusculum just had everything I wanted, including being a small school. After I met her, everything lined up, and I knew that’s where I needed to be.”

Potential career options she is exploring are working as a statistician for a political campaign, the U.S. women’s national soccer team or a baseball program.

Emma is active in many activities when she is not in class. She has served as an assistant coach and head coach at summer camps for youth soccer and founded a club to tutor fellow students in math. As a member of HOSA-Future Health Professionals, she has assisted with a breast cancer walk and collected canned foods for local food pantries and blankets for homeless shelters. She has also prepared a meal for a Ronald McDonald House and helped with a local basketball tournament.

“It is important to me that I help others while educating myself on the problems of the world,” Emma said. “Civic Arts is involving people in any way that they can, to help themselves and those around them. It is finding a balance of teaching and being taught, helping and being helped and taking and giving, all things that I strive to show through my actions and interactions with every person I encounter within my current community and, eventually, the Tusculum community.”

A highlight of Emma’s academic success was her selection as a junior for the North Carolina Governor’s School West. During this six-week program, she learned mathematical concepts and participated in philosophical conversations.

“I felt obligated to inform those around me on what I had learned because I knew it could alter their viewpoints much in the same way as mine had been,” Emma said. “However, I faced a major struggle when it came to educating people other than my close loved ones and peers. I came to the realization that educating people is not just explaining an issue to them, but rather helping to improve the issues within one’s own community.”