As the Director of the Office of Rural Initiatives, Meredith Bazemore supports the mission of the Office of Rural Initiatives (ORI) through recruitment, outreach, pipeline programs, partnership with health affairs schools on interprofessional opportunities, and program management across all initiatives. With a background in financial aid, admissions, and college access, Meredith works to coordinate efforts of all rural programs to meet the mission of service for rural and underserved areas of North Carolina.
The ORI is the central office for the Kenan Rural Primary Care Scholars program which partners with Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC), and Southeast Area Health Education Center (SEAHEC) to provide rural experiences through six-week internships across Western and Eastern North Carolina, and is the home campus for Kenan Scholars in Central North Carolina. In addition to the Kenan Scholars Program, ORI manages the NC Promise Scholarship, Community Engagement Opportunities, collaborates with the FIRST program with UNC Family Medicine, the Office of Special Programs within UNC School of Medicine to support diversity recruitment efforts, the Rural Interprofessional Health Initiative, and the Rural Medicine Project, a cohort-based program to support UNC Undergraduate students from rural North Carolina.
