NEWS

Local angles: Chestertown, Md.

Photo note: To download a photo of Collier, see end of release.

CHAPEL HILL – Ann Upchurch Collier, a senior English major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has won one of 15 Luce Scholarships awarded nationwide. UNC is the only North Carolina school with a winner this year.

The Henry Luce Foundation provides a year's internship in Asia. It aims to acquaint future American leaders with the continent and with Asian colleagues in their fields. Candidates must have no prior experience with Asia. Nationwide, 65 colleges and universities are eligible to nominate Luce candidates. Winners are chosen for highest academic achievement and outstanding leadership ability.

Collier, the daughter of Thomas and Virginia Collier of Chestertown, Md., on the Eastern Shore, will learn next month where the foundation will place her from August through spring 2005. This summer, the foundation will offer her an opportunity to study the language of the country where she will be assigned.

Already a proven nonfiction writer and documentary filmmaker, Collier aspires to continue those pursuits after completing her internship.

"My passion is collecting stories," she said. "I hope to work for a newspaper (English-language) there and develop the discipline to report and write every day. I’d also like to complete an independent study – to find some issue that fascinates me and write or produce a film about it."

Carolina ranks second to Harvard University for producing Luce Scholars. Collier is UNC’s 24th winner since the program began in 1974. Last year’s UNC winner was Carl Fisher of Union, N.J. The value of the Luce varies with each winner’s assignment and location.

While in high school, she studied the effects of desegregation in Kent County, Md. The Concord Review, a quarterly journal of the National Writing Board, published the study in 1999. Today, Collier’s study is still read in Kent County by educators seeking to understand racial issues in the schools.

"It was the first taste of the value of my own work and how the written word could be used to powerful effect," she wrote in her Luce application.

Last year Collier produced a film documentary on the decline of the seafood industry on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The film was a finalist in UNC and Kent County film festivals. It was funded by a Carolina undergraduate honors program grant.

"My job is to discern and preserve stories that otherwise might be lost, stories that capture communities and individuals in their historical contexts," she wrote. "It requires a fluency in several disciplines, including economics, folklore, history, literature and politics. It demands the investigative hunger and organizational capacity of the journalist as well as the novelist’s attention to artistry."

Collier edited the school newspaper at the Groton School, a preparatory school in Massachusetts. In 1999 she won a Morehead Award to Carolina, a full, four-year merit-based scholarship that also funds four summer enrichment experiences. She has a 3.85 cumulative grade-point-average, has made the dean’s list every semester and was inducted last fall into Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s highest and oldest collegiate honor society.

Last summer, Collier completed an Italian-language immersion program in Rome, Sicily and Umbria. She is writing an honors thesis on Scotsman James Boswell, the 18^th-century biographer of English writer and critic Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first English dictionary.

"Ann Collier uniquely weds a love for literature, journalism and filmmaking and will enjoy a year's internship in an assignment that will nourish all those interests," said Dr. George Lensing, English professor and director of the UNC Office of Distinguished Scholarships. "The crafting of narratives in conventional and unconventional ways is her unique gift."

Leadership, public service and physical fitness are among Collier’s other gifts. In her junior year at Carolina, she helped bring major speakers to campus through her work with the student union and the Great Decisions Lecture Series. Collier has coached youth soccer, taught computer skills to public housing residents and tutored at-risk youngsters.

In one of her four summer experiences for the Morehead, Collier helped connect residents of a province in India with a global, Washington, D.C.-based Internet platform to provide access to philanthropists. In another, she wrote reports, financial manuals and other materials while working in Croatia for the International Rescue Committee. She studied refugee policy, legal procedures, shelter relief, sanitation projects and democracy-building initiatives.

"As I tried to understand the aftermath of war, I had to overcome a language barrier and my fear of entering into potentially volatile situations," Collier wrote. "I returned home with extensive notes documenting the lives and perspectives of both Croats and Serbs …

" I was able to discover truths that they, as former enemies, were not comfortable discussing with one another. I soon realized how individual narratives can illuminate and deepen our understanding of complicated, even horrible political situations. In fact, oftentimes these portraits, full of description and personality, can be the best avenue to uncovering the truth behind history."

Collier and as a Royal Yachting Association-certified skipper -- having accumulated more than 5,000 sea miles. She completed a 22-day intensive mountaineering course in the Colorado Outward Bound School in 1999 and was a defender on UNC’s fourth-ranked NCAA Division One women’s lacrosse team in her freshman year.

Raymond B. Farrow III, development director for international studies, a former Luce Scholar and chair of the UNC nominating committee for the Luce, wrote UNC’s nominating letter to the foundation. He called Collier an impressive journalist, "not afraid of wrestling with meaning, no matter where the journey for truth may take her …

"I believe it is her deep feeling for people – their struggles and joys and pain – that make her focus on narrative journalism so compelling," Farrow wrote. "Her special ability is revealing how the individual story or personal narrative can reveal important truths about political and social issues and modern life. Her work to date offers an exciting testimony to her skill as a storyteller. I believe we all will learn much from Ann’s stories in the years to come."

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Photo url: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/students/collier_ann.jpg

 Contacts: Dr. George Lensing, 919-962-4053, lensing@email.unc.edu

Raymond B. Farrow III, 919-962-6865, raymond_farrow@unc.edu

News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu