Chattanoogan: Signal Mountain High’s Siena Rodrigues Excited About Being School’s First Morehead-Cain Scholar To UNC

When graduating Signal Mountain High School senior Siena Rodrigues was at the school track one Friday in early March throwing the discus, she could be seen excitedly hugging one teammate and running up to several others.

 

It was not over where her discus had landed, but where she was getting ready to land as a future college student after receiving an update on her phone. 

 

But she did set a school record in the process, not in her discus throw during practice as an observer from a distance might have thought, but by being the first student from the school to receive the prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship to the University of North Carolina. 

 

Ms.

Rodrigues is also believed to be the first student at a public school in all of Hamilton County to receive this merit-based scholarship that is considered among the most acclaimed in the country and is especially prized in the South.  

 

As a result, Ms. Rodrigues, who admitted to badly wanting the scholarship, did not stop her celebration there. 

 

“I went home and told my parents and called everyone who had ever helped me,” she said, adding that Signal Mountain college counselor Sandy Mitchum was especially overcome with emotion. “It was wonderful to get to share that moment with them.”

 

While schools like Baylor and McCallie have had dozens of what were formerly called Morehead Scholars dating back to the program’s beginning in the 1950s, and Girls Preparatory School had its first in 2017, more public schools like Signal Mountain have become “nominating schools.” Thus, opportunities have opened up for people like Ms. Rodrigues.

 

And Signal Mountain has had plenty of other good news on the awards front this year, as it was also recently announced that fellow senior Seo Yoon Yang has been named to the U.S. Presidential Scholars list, among other honors and scholarships for the Signal students.

 

Ms. Rodrigues’ journey toward receiving the scholarship included not just focusing on what she had to offer, but also on what UNC and the scholarship program represented.

 

During her junior year, she toured three North Carolina schools all known for their attractive campuses – UNC, Wake Forest and Appalachian State. While she liked them all, she was drawn to UNC because it was known for being academically rigorous but was still a state school and was well rounded in its offerings.

 

But she knew UNC was tough to get into from out of state among Southern state schools and expensive for non-residents, so she did not get her hopes up.

 

However, she went into counselor Ms. Mitchum’s office at the beginning of her senior year and told her that, despite all those challenges, UNC was still her dream school and that it had everything she wanted.

 

“She said, ‘I’m going to nominate you for the Morehead-Cain Scholarship,’ ” Ms. Rodrigues recalled. “I had never heard of it.”

 

And then, when the senior went and looked up some information on this scholarship that takes into account not only scholarship and academic achievement, but also leadership, character, and participation in sports or physical rigor, it seemed perfect. 

 

Primarily it was one word that jumped out at her regarding what the school wanted among its Morehead-Cain recipients in their combined backgrounds and perspectives: diversity.

 

“Growing up on Signal Mountain and being of mixed race, that was one of my biggest things,” she said. “I love all different cultures.”

 

Explaining further, she said her father, Klin, is from Mumbai, India, and came to Chattanooga as a polymer scientist. Her mother, Lisa, is from Ohio and is also of French Canadian descent.

 

“I’m a little bit of a chameleon and it’s fun and I can get in with lots of different people,” she said, adding that she wanted as a youngster to embrace all her ethnic roots instead of trying to label herself.

 

However, she has also seen the occasional negative moments, she said, when she was reminded in some way either intentionally or unintentionally that she was not completely like most of her white schoolmates and others living on Signal Mountain.

 

As someone sensitive about and cognizant of racial differences, she helped organize and lead a speech-focused student protest event last summer at Coolidge Park after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. She did this, even though she said she realized she could not try to equate her own experiences of being a minority with those of black people.

 

The main label she has had among the faculty and most of the students, however, was as a leader and scholar with varied skills. In fact, she has also shown diversity in her skills, as she possesses several seemingly unrelated abilities and passions. 

 

Not only did she throw the discus well enough as a sophomore to finish 11^th in the state, but she also served as the student body president as a senior. She was also one of the drum majors beginning her sophomore year, serving as head drum major the last two years after being an alto saxophone player.

 

And she has also become an International Baccalaureate graduate, which included taking a number of Advanced Placement classes.

 

Besides moving her arms horizontally throwing the shot put and discus, she also moves them plenty up and down as the school’s first student concert conductor.

 

Despite all this work, she has not been too busy to keep from enjoying such relaxing activities as hiking and getting coffee with a close group of friends.  

 

As her senior year progressed, she was also busily and carefully going through the application process for the Morehead-Cain Scholarship and applying to other colleges. The Morehead experience was quite detailed, she said, and first involved some writing reflections, which caused her to go back and look at some of her old journals.

 

“From the start it showed how thoughtful the process was,” she said. “That month (of putting the application together) was a lot of introspection and reflection.”

 

She still thought she was a longshot for the scholarship, but then in early November she found out she had been named a semifinalist.

 

The next step was to answer some questions online in an automated interview format. Ms. Rodrigues took her preparation one step further than most by asking about seven faculty members at Signal Mountain to prep her with questions, and they kindly agreed.

 

It paid off, as she found out in mid-December that she was a finalist. However, the most difficult part about the UNC application process had now arrived – having to wait until the final interviews in late February.

 

She was admittedly nervous when the online interviews were held, but she felt like they went well. They included an exercise among some of the fellow finalists and the interview with school representatives, whom she said were quite distinguished. 

 

She had talked about helping with the student protest project at Coolidge Park and a black woman was one of the interviewers, but Ms. Rodrigues felt like she was able to portray her empathy without trying to appear to victimize herself as a member of a minority.

 

“I was able to find a balance,” she said.

 

And she learned less than a week later she had found a school, too. She was going to be a North Carolina Tar Heel.

 

On the track and field practice field where she was throwing the discus, she learned that day that her life was about to come literally full circle as she was going to the college that she had first visited months earlier and where she began dreaming of one day being a student.

 

 

Ms. Rodrigues, whose two older sisters went to Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, in early June will go on a monthlong hiking and backpacking trip in Washington state that is one of the enrichment programs offered for scholarship recipients.

 

When she arrives at school in the fall as a Morehead-Cain Scholar – and will be fully integrated with the rest of the student body and, to her pleasure, not separated – she hopes to major in psychology with plans to get a PhD or maybe go to law school.

 

“I love people and that would be most fulfilling getting to understand the human mind better,” she said.

 

This young woman who appreciates people of all colors will now have one favorite school color – the baby blue of UNC. And yes, she plans to take part in the favorite UNC pastime of following the men’s basketball team, too.

 

She actually already did a little of that on the weekend she was notified she had received the prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship, when she saw the Tar Heels beat rival Duke.

 

“My dad and I love basketball, and it was really fun to sit down and root for the team,” she said with enthusiasm of that memorable weekend where her college plans were happily cemented, as has been the case for countless other high school seniors here and beyond. 

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net