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CHAPEL HILL -- Five undergraduates at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will spend the summer pursuing their dreams around the globe, thanks to the Burch Fellows Program.

The fellowships, made possible by a gift from 1963 alumnus Lucius E. Burch III, provide grants of up to $6,000 each for unique independent study projects. Lucius Burch is the chief executive officer and chair of Massey Burch Investment Group, a private venture capital company in Nashville, Tenn.

One student will study and play the trumpet with renowned classical musicians in six locations across Europe. Another will research sacred landscapes in Ireland and Scotland. Others will explore the impact of globalization on the island of Samoa, stage an original play in Edinburgh and learn how AIDS is treated in Kenya.

Music-performance major and trumpeter Kevin Crotty, a rising junior from Raleigh, will study in London with Paul Archibald of the Royal College of Music; in Berlin with Tamas Velenczei, the solo trumpet player for the Berlin Philharmonic; in Bordeaux with Pierre Dutot, an internationally renowned soloist and president of the European International Trumpet Guild; and in Munich with Wolfgang Guggenberger of the Richard Strauss Conservatory. He will also travel to Manchester, England, as a finalist in the Mock Orchestral Competition there, and to Morgest, Switzerland, where he will perform chamber music as part of a music festival.

"I hope to play trumpet professionally in either an orchestra or as a chamber musician or soloist," said Crotty, who has been playing the trumpet since the sixth grade. "The Burch Fellowship will help immensely with my career goals." He is the son of Thomas and Dawn Crotty of Raleigh.

Anthropology major Elizabeth Kerr, a rising senior from of Charlotte, will stay in Benedictine monasteries, attend Catholic pilgrimages and visit other sites in Ireland and Scotland that have been deemed holy since pagan times. "I am very interested in the process by which people begin to connect themselves to the land," she said.

The idea for her project emerged during a UNC class on "Religion and Nature," taught by Dr. Norris Brock Johnson. Kerr plans to base her senior honors thesis on her field studies this summer. "This fellowship will be crucial to my development as a scholar and as an individual," said Kerr, daughter of William Verdery Kerr and Mary Ann Kerr of Charlotte. "More than that, I’m just really excited to be pursuing a dream."

For rising senior Allyson Lippert of Mooresville, a summer in Samoa presents an unusual opportunity to combine two major interests. Since middle school, she has dreamed of going to the South Pacific to paint, she said, "partly to emulate [Paul] Gauguin and partly to go on my own journey of self discovery."

As a business and political science major at Carolina, she developed an interest in sustainable development, which she plans to explore for her senior honors thesis. In Samoa, she will conduct research for her thesis while creating paintings that she hopes will tell a visual story about the impact of globalization on a developing country often thought of as paradise. Lippert is the daughter of John Lippert of Atlanta and Kristen Carter of Mooresville.

Dramatic art and international studies major David Chapman, a rising senior from Chicago will perform in an original one-man play at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, billed as "the largest arts festival in the world." In the play, "The Bisexual Alphabet," Chapman plays several characters who use the letters of the alphabet as prompts to reflect on their lives. The festival runs from August 4 to 26.

"The experience of performing my own work for an international audience of theatre people means that I will learn so much," said Chapman , the son of Howard Chapman and Diane Nelson of Chicago.

Biology major Tanya Rogo, a rising senior from Kenya, will return home to learn how AIDS is treated in her country. Rogo who plans to become a doctor, will work in hospitals in Nairobi and Kisumu, to observe healthcare conditions in both urban and rural settings. She is the daughter of Drs. Lucie and Khama Rogo.

Previous Burch Fellows have worked in a medical clinic in Alaska, studied gender and economic development in Tanzania, developed the first written dictionary for inhabitants of a small village in Mexico, played saxophone with leading jazz musicians in New York City and lived on an Indian reservation in western North Carolina.

The Burch Program also sponsors field research seminars in which UNC faculty take small groups of students to conduct research on site. Seminar participants have studied security issues in the Balkans, democratization and economic development in Southern Africa and culture and consumption in China. They have conducted oral histories in the Czech Republic, interned with public policymakers in Washington, D.C., examined earthquake sites in California, and researched ecological issues in eastern North Carolina.

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Contact: Ross Lewin, Burch Programs, (919) 962-9680, rlewin@email.unc.edu