Immersive experience funds encourage students to learn by doing. Funds support a variety of activities and encourage students to think creatively about how such funding may support a unique experience. Graduating seniors are not eligible to apply except for the John Sweeney Interview Award.
Funds are transferred to the student’s UNC account. Funds must be reported by UNC Hussman to the UNC Office of Scholarships and Student Aid and may affect the student’s financial aid. Funds may have tax implications.
Information about applying for funding will become available on January 8, 2025.
The Chuck Stone Citizen of the World Award is given to a UNC Hussman undergraduate major who proposes to travel to other countries to pursue programs of study or to work on projects related to the study of media and journalism.
The award honors Chuck Stone, a renowned journalist who joined the school’s faculty in 1991. He was a reporter, editor and columnist at newspapers including The New York Age, The Afro-American, the Chicago Defender and the Philadelphia Daily News. He was the first president of the National Association of Black Journalists, which presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Stone developed an international consciousness after living in Egypt and the Gaza Strip for six months and in India for 18 months while working for CARE. He also reported from Northern Ireland and visited 14 countries in Africa on assignments for CARE.
The name of the fund recognizes Stone’s fondness for Francis Bacon’s quote about grace and courtesy to strangers and being a citizen of the world.
The fund supports an undergraduate journalism major, preferably from North Carolina, to travel or work abroad during the summer. The fund honors Ed Jackson, a veteran foreign correspondent for United Press International and Time magazine.
The John Sweeney Experience Award provides funding for UNC Hussman undergraduate majors for a provocative, innovative summer experience.
The experience can help students’ career aspirations or educational enrichment. It can take place over a weekend or the full summer. Funds may be used for travel, work supplies or workshop registrations.
The award is intended to help students gain new experiences, learn new technologies and master new subjects. The amount of the award should pay for a significant amount of the experience.
The Sweeney Interview Award provides funding for a senior advertising major to travel to pursue jobs and internship opportunities with top advertising agencies.
Awarded to senior advertising majors.
The award is named in honor of Professor Emeritus Rich Beckman, who directed the visual communication program in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media from 1978 to 2008. Beckman’s work focuses on documentary multimedia for social change and has worked with a number of organizations as a documentary producer and educator.
The award honors his tradition of strong documentary work by funding a student or a team of students each year pursuing a long-form storytelling project. Previous grantees have worked in such places as the Philippines, Ecuador, the Grand Canyon and Louisiana.
This award goes to a student or group of students conducting fieldwork for documentary storytelling or interactive multimedia projects. The scholarship was created to enable students to produce stories they might not otherwise have the opportunity to pursue.
Undergraduate majors and graduate students who have completed at least one photojournalism course are eligible to apply. Graduating students are not eligible to apply.
The resulting work should suitable for publication, and students must complete their projects within one year of receipt of the funds.
This award honors the memory of Robin Weaver Clark, a journalist who attended the school from 1973-77. Clark was killed in a car accident at the age of 40 while he was in Los Angeles covering the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995 for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Each year, an undergraduate journalism student may use the award to learn as Robin did — by doing. The key criterion for selection is the experience a student is planning. The experience could be in the U.S. or abroad, it could tell the story of a group of people or allow the student to attend a unique cultural event. Whatever it is, it should be a rich and rewarding journalistic experience.
This award goes to a student in the school whose career goals are to cover international, political and economic events or work in the field of public diplomacy, with preference given to students from North Carolina. The donor prefers that the award be given to students who are self-starters, have a strong interest in cross-cultural communication, have financial need and demonstrate initiative.
This award honors the career and memory of William G. Arey Jr., a 1939 graduate of the school who co-founded the award-winning Cleveland County Times and later served with the U.S. Foreign Service in Panama.