Scheidt named Outstanding Woman of the Year

Tara Scheidt, a junior from China Grove, N.C., majoring in international business and economics, has been named the University's Outstanding Woman of the Year for 2008.

University officials honored Scheidt and four finalists. The award is given annually to an undergraduate who demonstrates exemplary academic achievement, service, and leadership and who is actively in involved in campus and community activities.

Scheidt, a student in the Honors College, holds a Cooper scholarship, one of the highest undergraduate scholarships awarded by the University. To be awarded a Cooper Scholarship, a freshman student must have a minimum 1350 SAT. Cooper scholars receive $4,000 annually for four years of study.

A student in the Moore School of Business, Scheidt is the president of the Global Business Council, a student research group of the Palmetto Institute, an economic research firm aimed at increasing South Carolina inhabitants' per-capita income. She plans to work in international finance after she graduates in May 2009.

Scheidt is a member of the USAV women's club volleyball team at the University, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Alpha Lambda Delta honor society, which twice selected Scheidt as one of 50 undergraduate emerging leaders nationally.

This yea's finalists were Devon Berry, a senior Honors College student from Charlotte majoring in mechanical engineering; Angela Bingham, a sophomore McNair scholar from Forest City, N.C., majoring in pharmacy; Amanda Kay Seals, a senior McNair scholar and Rotary scholar from Clinton, Tenn., whose interdisciplinary major includes studying poverty and development; and Melisa Selin Tanverdi, a junior Honors College student from Columbia majoring in biology.

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