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NC Entrepreneurship Center announces 2022 Entrepreneur of the Year Award
Tyler Clark, 2022 Jerry McGuire Student Entrepreneur of the Year
The NC Entrepreneurship Center is proud to announce this year’s Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award to Tyler Clark. Tyler was lauded at the LaunchUNCG Open House at TransformGSO of Friday April 22, 2022, where she received the recognition and notification of her scholarship funds.
Tyler Clark is a 2nd year Ph.D. student at UNCG in the department of Educational Research Methodology. 
She currently serves as a student evaluator in the Office of Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Services (OAERS) at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She serves as the research lead on three of her grant-funded projects and leads a team of novice evaluators to develop specific evaluation methods and apply them to assessments of various programs and projects. During her employment at UNCG, she also teamed up with a few colleagues and faculty mentors to publish an article entitled “What Gets Measured Gets Done: Exploring NSF-Funded Evaluators’ and Principal Investigators’ Attention to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”, where we studied how principal investigators and evaluators measured equity, diversity, and inclusion in their advanced technological education (ATE) projects. This article is currently in the press to be published this year. Tyler has maintained a 4.0 GPA during her tenure at UNCG and serves on the executive board for the Educational Research Methodology Graduate Student Association.
While in graduate school, Tyler noticed a gap in the criminal justice department at her alma mater, NCCU, regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion for young black female students. During her time, she founded a cohort model gender-specific student organization called J.E.W.E.L.S. which is a social justice organization for undergraduate women interested in social justice, mentorship, service, and leadership. The acronym stands for justice, empowerment, wisdom, excellence, leadership, and service. The organization’s mission is to empower future women leaders who seek professional and personal growth through mentorship, networking, and service. She formed the organization to provide additional campus support to female criminal justice (CJ) and social justice students, as 70% of CJ majors are women. The organization is student-led but follows her strategic direction. Now having inducted the third cohort, the organization has grown to 70 female student members. J.E.W.E.L.S., Inc. has had a 100% graduation rate and 80% of the graduates have transitioned to a graduate program or job in their field. As an organization, over 900 community service hours have been completed and over $30,000 fundraised to support student conferences, scholarships, and organizational needs. This year Tyler also developed and awarded 2 scholarships in her name to help support advancing J.E.W.E.L.S. members in their educational endeavors. While working on her Ph.D., Tyler has continued to serve as the advisor for the NCCU chapter of J.E.W.E.L.S., Inc where they are bringing in a fourth cohort of 20 girls. Tyler is currently expanding J.E.W.E.L.S., Inc. to other campuses including UNCG and NCA&T. For more information, please visit the national organization website (www.thejewelsorg.com) or the NCCU chapter website (nccujewels.wixsite.com/nccujewels).
