Shaping Futures: Kennedy Carpenter’s Journey in Nursing, Leadership, and Service
By Isaiah Griffin
From her first steps on UNC Charlotte’s campus, Kennedy Carpenter, a senior nursing student with a minor in Spanish from Winston-Salem, NC, knew she would have a lasting impact on her campus community, the city of Charlotte, and beyond. She first became interested in healthcare professions in the fifth grade when she was introduced to body systems during science classes at her school.
“We started talking very basics,” she answered joyfully when asked about what drew her to the medical field. “There’s the skeletal system. Here’s the muscular system. Here’s a digestive system, and it just really infatuated me and I would go home and look up videos and start reading things on my own. And so with looking at, you know, what is a profession that I can do related to this body system? Obviously, the medical field came about. And I just started to think on who and what profession is really on the front lines.”
Those questions sparked Kennedy’s journey into becoming a nurse.
Family Influence
Outside of school, Kennedy was surrounded by medical professionals, supporting her family’s in-home healthcare business created by her grandmother. The business is contracted by the state and employs Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) to provide aid to patients who require varying levels of support. In 2015, Kennedy’s father and stepmother took over the business, and by the time she was in high school, she began to learn the business side of healthcare by working at the front desk and providing administrative support.
Choosing UNC Charlotte
When it was time to begin applying for colleges, Kennedy knew what she wanted to do, but the next question was where she would go to continue her academics and begin her professional journey.
In the summer before her senior year of high school, she went to her guidance counselor and Crosby Scholars advisor, Ms. Corey Daniels. Knowing the profession she wanted to pursue, the distance she wanted to be from home, and the community she hoped to impact, Daniels encouraged her to explore UNC Charlotte as an option. Daniels also told Kennedy about the Levine Scholars Program and notified her that she had the opportunity to be the first student from her school, and one of the few in her entire county, to be selected for this honor.
Levine Scholars Program
At UNC Charlotte, the Levine Scholars Program recruits high-achieving students and develops them into service-driven leaders who will have a positive impact on local and global communities. Kennedy highlights that she underwent a rigorous application and selection process that allowed her to learn more about the program, its benefits, and the impact it has had on the success of past UNC Charlotte students. She attended several meetings related to the program, including sessions on civic engagement, leadership, internships, and study abroad opportunities.
“I felt like it was very engaging,” she said. “I felt like the students were very involved. There’s no way these students are sitting on these calls when they have other things to do, and are so passionate about what they’re doing, unless they really mean it.”
Kennedy comes from a family full of HBCU graduates, and before considering UNC Charlotte, her list of colleges included only Historically Black Colleges & Universities. Her mother is a proud North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University graduate and president of the university’s Winston-Salem alumni association chapter. Kennedy was also a finalist for their Cheatham-White Scholars Program.
“I was mostly nervous about if I get offered both, as in if I got offered Cheatham and Levine, which do I take?”
After several rounds of meetings and interviews, she recounts how excited she was when she received her acceptance into the Levine Scholars Program in the mail and knew at that moment where she would spend her next four years. By being selected as a Levine Scholar, the program provided Kennedy full tuition, housing, meals, and other mandatory fees, which is currently valued at approximately $129,000 for in-state students.
Early Involvement in the School of NUrsing
Following her acceptance, she attended a retreat the summer before her freshman year at Charlotte with other students in her cohort and began to build meaningful relationships. It was also through the Levine Scholars Program that she was able to get involved in nursing very early in her college matriculation.
“I got pretty involved with the School of Nursing, even as a pre-nursing student, with the Levine Scholars program. There’s 20 students in each cohort, but I would say there’s only about one per 20 that’s a nursing major. So we end up forming our own kind of relationship within each other.”
Through Levine’s mentorship program, Kennedy connected with David Buckner, a 2024 School of Nursing and Levine Scholars graduate. David helped her get involved with the Association of Nursing Students and introduced her to nursing professor Dr. Maren Coffman, who passed away in September of this year.
“He [David Buckner] was currently doing qualitative research with Dr. Maren Coffman, who was a graduate professor in the school of nursing. She just recently passed. But they were working to form a support group for women and individuals with Metastatic Breast Cancer since it is a very terminal illness. It was a very niche group that hadn’t been formed in Charlotte yet, and with us having the civic engagement project and having Carolina Breast Friends, which is a local nonprofit here. It was just, kind of, hitting the ground running with research and why it was needed. So David was like, these are the two things I need you to do. And I’m like, you know, why not? So I hopped on that research project very on, or very early on in August of my freshman year. We ended up going to Wisconsin around April to present this research at the National Conference of Undergraduate Researchers, and by that summer, our project proposal through Levine was approved.”
Civic Engagement and Research
Through funding provided by the Levine Scholars Program, Kennedy established and maintained a support group for individuals with Metastatic Breast Cancer and continued to partner with Carolina Breast Friends. Some of the events hosted have included Tai Chi classes, candle-making workshops, and annual spa trips, one of their most popular events. As a Levine Scholar, Kennedy was continuously engaged in nonprofit work, which also included volunteering at the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Charlotte by providing resources and support for patients and their families.
The Levine Scholars Program also provides funding for summer experiences that focus on service, leadership, and social awareness. This allowed Kennedy to participate in a month-long study abroad opportunity in Stellenbosch, South Africa. During her time there in the summer of 2023, she studied the history of Apartheid and the impact of HIV on South African communities.
Kennedy’s Future and Development
Kennedy plans to specialize in pediatric nursing, and this past summer, she spent 10 weeks in Philadelphia at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, ranked #5 in the country for pediatric care by U.S. News & World Report. Following her internship, she accepted a return offer to start in July 2026 after graduating and passing her NCLEX exam.
Some of Kennedy’s other accomplishments include becoming president of the Association of Nursing Students, participating in several research conferences across the nation, and being a Spring 2024 initiate into Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.
She highlights that these accomplishments and experiences were once only dreams, but she realized they were attainable through opportunities like the Levine Scholars Program and admittance into the UNC Charlotte School of Nursing. Kennedy continues to make an impact on both local and global communities and is excited to continue making a positive difference in the world.