Senior Erin Berry heads to UNC-Chapel Hill SPGRE program

By Temika Bobbitt-Amerson
Staff Writer

Senior Erin Berry, a mass communications major, has been accepted to participate in the 2006 Summer Pre-Graduate Research Experience (SPGRE) Program.                  

Through this progarm she will spend 10 weeks working on a 20 page research paper and poster at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  “The SPGRE program is actually a program that I learned about last summer at a graduate school fair that was held in the U.C.,” Berry said.

“It definitely pays to go to those things, because if not, I would have never learned about this,” Berry continued. The SPGRE is on its 18th  year of offering undergraduate students the opportunity to do high quality research.

The program is designed to help minorities higher educate themselves due to the shortage of minority Ph.D. recipients. “I believe that I will focus on the representation of minorities in the media because this is a topic that I am passionate about.

“And actually, this paper has stemmed off of the paper that I wrote for my Mass Communications Theory and Research class, under the direction of Dr. Liu. Dr. Liu kind of inspired me to pursue this so I give a lot of thanks to her for her encouragement,” said Berry. The SPGRE program will hold various special seminars and sessions.

All student participants will receive a stipend, food allowance, housing and travel reimbursement. While at UNCP, Berry has been involved in many different clubs and organizations such as, SGA, WNCP-TV and The Pine Needle.