ADVOCATE FOR JUSTICE

East Carolina University senior Peyton Paschke aspires to become a lawyer and lead a career helping people fight injustice.

Her dream job is to work as a lawyer for Olympic athletes, and she said her role model is Margaret Mary “Maggie” Nichols, a former American collegiate gymnast. Nichols suffered a knee injury in the buildup to the Rio Olympics that proved to be a critical factor in her not making the Olympic team.

Paschke is a member of the Honors College and will graduate Friday with dual degrees in political science and foreign languages and literatures, with an emphasis in French.

Peyton Paschke wants to fight injustice. She graduates this spring with degrees in political science and foreign languages and will attend law school in the fall. (Photos by Cliff Hollis)

Originally from New Lenox, Illinois, Paschke chose ECU as her academic home because of financial support and her experience visiting campus departments.

“I chose ECU because I was accepted into the Honors College on academic scholarship,” she said. “The campus was so beautiful, and I was very impressed with the political science and French departments.”

At ECU, Paschke has led a successful academic career with numerous honors, awards, scholarships, organizational service, leadership and ingenuity.

“The best way to have a true Pirate experience is to get involved,” she said. “Join clubs and take advantage of events.”

Paschke’s activities and organizational involvement include serving as president of the ECU French Club; ambassador for the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures; social media coordinator for the ECU Chapter of Best Buddies, a national campus group focused on normalizing and facilitating the relationships between able-bodied students and individuals with special needs; and co-founder and executive board member of the Campus Voter Initiative, an Honors College project and nonpartisan group focused on voter registration and sparking political interest on campus.

In addition to her group activities, Paschke studied abroad in La Rochelle, France, during the summer of 2019.

“I appreciated the chance to improve my French language skills while living in France with a host family and experiencing the culture and landmarks firsthand,” she said.

Paschke has received many scholarships and academic successes. She made the chancellor’s list in fall 2018 and during the spring and fall of 2020, as well as the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences dean’s list in the spring and fall of 2019. She is a member of the Pi Delta Phi National French Honors Society, the ECU Pre-Law Society, and is an Honors College Centennial Scholar. She also received the Honors College Study Abroad Scholarship, the Mary Pascal and Marguerite Perry Scholarship, the Thomas W. Rivers Foreign Exchange Scholarship and the John Philip Couch Scholarship.