Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Awards Scholarship to 2007 Scholar

UVa Today (Aug 13, 2008) | Daniel Young, a 2007 politics and history graduate of the University of Virginia, has received a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship.

Young, 23, who graduated with high honors in the Honors Politics program, has been working as a paralegal at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. He will pursue a joint degree in law, from the Yale Law School, and public policy, from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The Cooke Scholarship pays up to $50,000 a year for six years.

"It is an extraordinary privilege to be a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholar," Young said. "When I got the phone call, I was in shock."

Young was inspired to pursue a dual degree in part by meeting a White House staff member with a joint law and master's of public policy degree from Harvard. The joint degree will also make him more competitive for top-level public service jobs.

"It's extremely unusual to go to Yale law and the Kennedy School of Government for a combined degree," said John Echeverri-Gent, Young's U.Va. adviser in the politics degree. "Daniel is the only person in the past six years to graduate with highest honors from the honors politics program. He was an extraordinary student whose work was of the highest standards and went beyond the classroom," said Echeverri-Gent, an associate professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics.

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