News Release

Local angles: Asheville, Raleigh,
Holmes Beach, Fla., Virginia Beach, Va.

Four UNC students awarded
Class of 1938 travel scholarships

By KELLY OCHS
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL — Four University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students will create their own overseas experiences this summer, thanks to fellowships from the Carolina class of 1938.

The students were selected from among 50 UNC student applicants, who submitted proposals for independent research projects to be conducted outside the United States. Selection is based on quality of applicants’ proposals, financial need and seriousness of academic purpose. Each fellowship provides $3,500.

"They enable students to travel abroad to pursue projects that are significant to them," said Diana Levy, assistant director of the UNC Office of International Student and Scholar Services, through which the fellowships are awarded.

Winners of this year’s Class of 1938 Summer Study Abroad Fellowships, selected by class members and former fellowship recipients, are Amy Oraefo of Raleigh, Cara Perinetti of Holmes Beach, Fla., and Carlye Yates of Asheville.

Amanda Buckley of Virginia Beach, Va., received a Witten Travel Award of $3,200, given to the first alternate from the Class of 1938 fellowship selection process.

Rising junior Oraefo, a communication and cultural studies major, will visit a place she’s heard stories about since she was young. The communication studies and cultural studies major will spend six weeks in Ghana and Nigeria. Her parents left their native Nigeria in 1976.

"I just wanted to actually speak to people and see the other side of me, because I was born and raised here (in America)," she said. "I feel like it’s going to be an eye-opening experience."

Oraefo will conduct case studies to research the political, education and religious systems of Ghana and Nigeria. She will focus on the post-colonial experiences of the countries, which gained independence from Europe less than 50 years ago.

At UNC, Oraefo is the programs chair of the Black Student Movement and is on the Minority Student Recruitment Committee.

Perinetti, a rising senior biology major, will travel to Tokyo to observe the tension between believers in traditional medicine and conservationists who want to protect the endangered animals often used in this medicine.

She plans to create a documentary of her interviews and research in Japan, which she will use to raise awareness of the issue on campus.

Perinetti is a member of the Carolina Honors Program and secretary of the Alpha Epsilon Delta pre-health honor society. She serves on the student advisory board for the Office of Undergraduate Research and the Johnston Scholars Health and Science Committee.

Yates, a rising junior psychology major, spent a month in Ireland and Scotland on her fellowship, studying the emergence of Celtic art. Now she’s ready to share her experiences with students in the East Chapel Hill High School art club, which she formed.

"Actually walking in the footsteps of the ancient Celts and tracing their artistic stone engravings with my fingertips made history and artistic creation come alive in a way it never could have without this scholarship opportunity," she said.

Yates is a YoungLife leader, a psychology lab assistant and a volunteer for the Durham Child Health and Development Study.

Buckley, a rising senior Spanish and women’s studies major, will study in Guadalajara, Mexico, researching the use of gender and sex in the Spanish language.

"I think these fellowships mean a lot to our student body, because when these students come back, they share their experiences," Levy said.

Since 1975, an endowment created by UNC’s Class of 1938 has funded independent projects abroad by UNC students annually. Members of the class, who lived through and lost friends to World War II, created the endowment to help foster international understanding and promote world peace.

Class of 1938 members Charles and Margaret Witten of Columbia, S.C., established the Witten Award.

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(Ochs is a rising senior journalism and mass communication major from Winston-Salem.)

Note: Oraefo can be reached at oraefo@email.unc.edu; Perinetti, at caper@email.unc.edu; Yates, at ccyates@email.unc.edu; Buckley, at buckleya@email.unc.edu

Scholarship contact: Diana Levy, (919) 962-5661 or dmlevy@email.unc.edu

News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589