Elizabeth Basnight

Elizabeth Basnight is a 2007 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a student at UNC, she explored passions and gained skills through a variety of rich opportunities offered by the university. Basnight was a four-year participant in the NC Fellows Program, a program designed to accelerate and support the development of highly motivated undergraduate students with exceptional leadership potential through retreats and intensive leadership training seminars. Additionally she received leadership training through the "Dynamics of Effective Leadership" seminar, a four-month program at UNC, and in UNC's Womentoring Program, a series of leadership-development seminars conducted by professional community members and UNC faculty and staff. In addition, Basnight completed a language and culture program at La Sorbonne in Paris in 2005. 

 In 2004, Basnight founded and directed a surf and leadership camp for high school girls at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, and have since served as its coordinator and lead instructor. With the enthusiasm derived from her experience at Cape Lookout, she planned and secured funding to start a mentoring and surfing program in Nicaragua. Developing this program with limited resources in rural Nicaragua strengthened her skills in creatively multi-tasking, fostering teamwork, and adapting a program to meet community needs. 

 Upon completing her degree, Basnight extended her experience in community building through an internship in Cambodia. This was an opportunity that she had not pre-planned and after a few false starts, she found the right fit at Korsang, a drop-in clinic for injection drug users. There, Basnight came to understand the importance of risk-reduction programs and how they can address community needs in innovative ways. Possibly the richest parts of this experience were the connections she made with fellow staff members and the stories they told. 

 This past year, as a health care assistant at Planned Parenthood, Basnight spent hours individually counseling women about their healthcare options. She also took the initiative to organize and collect a comprehensive list of online resources, as well as articles on reproductive health, for our patients. 

 During and after her undergraduate career at UNC-Chapel Hill, Basnight worked with a variety of not-for-profit organizations and have seen the great importance of an entrepreneurial spirit and sound business acumen as tools for making change in the world. 

 

 Three things most people don’t know about Basnight: 

Her dad caught a 1002 pound blue marlin- the top 20 ever caught in the world. 

Her great great uncle was shot and killed in a poker game. 

Her first word was helicopter.