A passion for accessible education
Carroll School of Management junior Esosasehia (Esosa) Owens, a leader and advocate for accessible education, is the winner of this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Scholarship. University President William P. Leahy, S.J., presented Owens with the award at Boston College’s 43rd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Banquet held last month.
The MLK Scholarship is open to all Boston College juniors who have demonstrated superior academic achievement, extracurricular leadership, community service, and involvement with the African American community and African American issues.
Owens was one of five finalists for the annual scholarship award. She will receive $35,000 towards her senior year tuition and a $1,000 gift certificate to the BC Bookstore.
“When I reflect on Dr. King’s life, I think about how transformative his advocacy was,” said Owens, a business management major and sociology minor from Randolph, Mass. “Growing up, I always had one view of what advocacy looked like, and that was just yelling to a large group of people. But when I think of Dr. King, I think of how he advocated even in small groups or through individual relationships.
“That’s the kind of advocacy I am trying to reflect in my life. Where I’m not necessarily the biggest voice in a crowd, I can see myself advocating for things in small meetings or conversations with people. I’m so grateful to have received this award, but it also reminds me to continue that advocacy in every aspect of my life, whether it’s for people at work or for someone who feels as if they don’t have a voice. Using advocacy in ways that I feel are unconventional is what this award means for me.”
Esosa Owens '26 (Photo by Caitlin Cunningham)
Owens, one of three siblings to attend BC, first found her passion for education accessibility during her freshman year on the Jamaica Magis service immersion trip to Kingston, where students live with and serve the people of the community who have faced social, political, and economic oppression.
“The day after my freshman year ended, I got on the flight to Jamaica. Our primary responsibility was to be teaching assistants at a local primary school. Being so immersed in how school systems run in low-income communities really opened my eyes to how resource allocation is something that these areas struggle with compared to more affluent areas, whether that’s in Kingston or even in Massachusetts and other parts of the United States.
“But on top of the teaching service that we did in the schools, we also worked in mustard seed communities”—vulnerable groups in Jamaica living with disabilities, HIV/AIDS, or teen mothers and their children—“to help serve these different groups of people who are marginalized in Jamaica as well.”
This past winter break, Owens returned to Kingston as a leader of Jamaica Magis with a mission to teach fourth grade, reuniting with the second-graders she taught two years ago.
“A couple days before we started school, I saw one of my kids from afar. She was just walking. Then we made eye contact, and in a matter of seconds she ran up and hugged me. I was just so happy,” she recalled.
Owens is also a member of the Synergy hip-hop dance team, a historian of the African Students Organization, a student panelist for the Student Admissions Program, and a student employee at Bourneuf House and the African and African Diaspora Studies Program.
Balancing her involvement in campus activities with her academic and social life is no easy feat, but being intentional with how she spends her time is the key reason for Owens’ engagement, she said. “If you want to be able to do well academically, but also serve the balance of social life, it is crucial to be intentional about what you want to get involved in. My intentions behind each thing I do make these extracurriculars feel less like work but more enjoyable, which I feel allows me to balance my academics, even when it does get overbearing at times.”
Through her unwavering commitment to accessible education, leadership, community service, and advocacy on behalf of others, Owens hopes to continue her work as a public servant by interlacing her knowledge of business with education and becoming a mediator in education systems.
“The school environment that a student is in really determines their trajectory in life. I hope one day I can be a mediator who can do away with those differences.”
The MLK Scholarship ceremony also included a keynote speech by Associate Professor Angela Ards, director of the BC journalism program, who is the author of Words of Witness: Contemporary Black Women’s Autobiography in the Post-Brown Era.
Read about the finalists for the 2025 MLK Scholarship here.