A Citadel alumna is advancing her career, and it all started with an email. When Taylor Diggs, who graduated in 2021, first saw the message in her inbox encouraging a group of Citadel graduates and current students to apply to Phi Kappa Phi fellowships and scholarships, she knew this would make a substantial impact toward her goal to serve others.
And it did. Diggs was selected as a recipient of a Marcus L. Urann Fellowship by the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Diggs is one of only six recipients nationwide to receive the prestigious $20,000 fellowship, named for the society’s founder. The honor is no surprise, as Diggs was accepted to 14 law schools, with nine of them being among the nation’s top ranked. As a Urann Fellow, Diggs will pursue a juris doctor degree at Harvard Law School.
“As I reflect on my time at The Citadel, I have realized just how important mentorship truly is,” said Diggs. “Although military aspects of the cadet experience are usually in the forefront, I found the greatest mentors in the halls of academia.”
Diggs credits two Citadel professors for helping her with the application for the Urann Fellowship. Without encouragement from Scott Lucas, Ph.D., head of the department of English, and Licia Hendriks, Ph.D., an English professor and the director of graduate studies at The Citadel, Diggs would not have applied.
“Taylor was a remarkably impressive cadet. She graduated summa cum laude with a political science major and Spanish minor as a member of the Honors Program,” said Hendriks. “I taught her in an Honors English course in fall 2019, and she was constantly looking for ways to engage both creatively and intellectually.”
Originally from Scotch Plains, New Jersey, Diggs worked as a paralegal case handler for the past two years, supporting and advocating for low-income tenants in New York City. She says this experience taught her that anyone can make a difference, even in the smallest of actions. Diggs’s experience in this role fueled her desire to continue to examine economic injustice across the country and the legal remedies to inequity.