NEWS

Local angles: Beaufort; Charlotte, Durham, Gibsonville,
Maceo, Ky., Maplewood, N.J., Nashville, Tenn.

By DEE REID
College of Arts and Sciences

CHAPEL HILL -- Seven undergraduates at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will pursue their dream adventures this summer by working on projects all over the world, thanks to the Burch Fellows Program.

The fellowships, made possible by a gift from alumnus Lucius Burch III provides grants of up to $6,000 each to support unique independent study projects.

One fellow will study and play Latin jazz with renowned musicians in Cuba while another learns about physical movement from leading acting coaches in London, Paris and northern Italy. One student will live near an active volcano in Costa Rica and another among gorillas in Zambia. Fellows also will plant a garden and provide other nutritional resources for hungry children in India as well as participate in public health and economic development projects in Nicaragua.

• Sindhura Citineni, a business administration major from Beaufort, N.C., is the founder of Hunger Lunch, which sells $3 lunches on campus throughout the year to raise funds for sustainable nutrition programs. Citineni plans to use the proceeds to help hungry children through a community-based organization in Andhra Pradesh, India. She will help plant a community vegetable garden, build a chicken coop and purchase a milk contract, medication and vitamins. "My Burch Fellowship will allow me to…provide nutrition and primary care of a community of children in need," she said.
  
  
• Stephen Ham, an anthropology major from Maceo, Ky., wants someday to establish or run a sanctuary for apes endangered by hunters and traders. He will begin his studies in Uganda, attending a five-day conference sponsored by the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance and visiting a leading chimpanzee sanctuary in the middle of Lake Victoria. He will spend at least six weeks in the world’s largest chimpanzee sanctuary, located in the Copperbelt region of Zambia, as the first undergraduate ever invited to study there. "My goal is to gain a deep understanding of what it means to create, operate and sustain a viable ape sanctuary," he said.
  
  
• Heide Iravani, an international studies major from Charlotte, became interested in Latin America while reading the works of Isabelle Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Last summer she traveled to Nicaragua to learn Spanish and vowed to return to "make myself useful." This summer she will work with Green Empowerment, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Ore., that has developed a mini-hydro project providing renewable electrical power in Bocay, Nicaragua. She will work with villagers on a new project to develop clean drinking water for the community. "I am eager to work for an organization that finds itself at a crossroads between environmental sustainability, community-based leadership, and socio-economic progress," Iravani said. "(These are) three components in any successful stride toward a better, healthier world."
  
  
• Megan Margaret Ketch, a dramatic art major from Durham, is passionate about acting. This summer she will study with masters of the physical movement techniques developed by Jacques Lecoq. She will spend three weeks in Paris working with Max Dana and developing three solo pieces that highlight the use of "the neutral mask." In London, she will study with Ron East, producer, director, playwright, performer and director of the School for Physical Theater. Finally, she will study and perform commedia dell’arte with Antonio Fava at the Teatro Cavallerizza in Reggio Emillia, Italy. She plans to incorporate these lessons in a solo movement piece to be performed at Carolina in the fall. "I hope to open a new door to characterization and my potential to transform entirely from role to role," she said.
  
  
• Daniel Pignatiello, a geological studies major from Charlotte, first became obsessed with volcanoes while watching the Discovery Channel as a child. He will spend the summer studying the active volcano Arenal in Costa Rica. He will collect samples, listen and observe the movement of magma to learn more about why and when active volcanoes erupt, and what can be done to prepare for such events and mitigate their impacts on surrounding communities. "Maybe by spending a great deal of time on the flanks, I will be able to achieve a personal relationship with this awe-inspiring geological structure," he said.
  
  
• Asher Stein, a music and international studies major from Maplewood, N.J., plays saxophone with jazz bands at both UNC and Duke. He loves bebop and is interested in learning more about Latin Jazz, the fusion of bebop with traditional rhythms from Latin America, especially Cuba. This summer he will take private lessons in Cuba from saxophonist Jorge Almieda and percussionist Francois Zayas; both are teachers at the Cuban National School of Music and members of the internationally acclaimed group Habana Sax. Stein will study improvisation and diverse song styles such as son, guajira, rumba, bolero and timba. He plans to establish a Latin jazz ensemble when he returns to campus in the fall. "I anticipate adding a new dimension to my jazz improvisation," he said. "I am confident that Cuban music will bring my playing to the next level."
  
  
• Natalie Teague, a Latin American studies major from Gibsonville, N.C., believes that businesses operating in a global economy can and should be both profitable and socially responsible. She plans to document how one company based in Ann Arbor, Mich., has been able to profitably produce T-shirts using organic cotton, environmentally sound technology and fair labor practices in partnerships with plants in California and North Carolina, as well as a women’s worker-owned cooperative in Nicaragua. Teague will visit all of the companies involved and spend eight weeks at the cooperative in Nicaragua. "Upon return, I will have seen every step of the production process for these sustainable t-shirts and discovered the partnerships between Michigan, California, North Carolina and Nicaragua," she said.

Previous Burch Fellows have studied and performed with renowned classical musicians across Europe, written and staged an original play at a major international arts festival in Edinburgh, studied AIDS treatment in Kenya and produced the first written dictionary for indigenous inhabitants in a small village in Mexico.

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 performed in a U.S.-Czech wind ensemble in Prague, Budapest and Vienna, analyzed security issues with leading policy-makers in Bosnia-Herzegovina and worked in agencies involved in democratization in South Africa. They have also studied culture in China, worked with public policy-makers in Washington, D.C., examined earthquake sites in California and researched ecological issues in eastern North Carolina.

Burch heads the Burch Investment Group in Nashville, Tenn.

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Burch Programs contact: Dr. Ross Lewin, director, (919) 962-9680, rlewin@email.unc.edu
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339, deereid@unc.edu
News Services contact: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu