Higher Education Awards Presented at NCPA's Winter Institute

Reporters Eric Ferreri, Benjamin Niolet and Jane Stancill of the (Raleigh) News & Observer have been named this year's winner of The Green-Rossiter Award, given in recognition of outstanding newspaper coverage of higher education in North Carolina.

Duke University has sponsored this award for North Carolina newspaper journalists since the early 1970s. The judges for the award are journalists outside of North Carolina. The awards were presented Wednesday evening at the North Carolina Press Association's annual Winter Institute.

Ferreri, Niolet and Stancill were honored for their stories on topics ranging from the role of women's colleges in North Carolina to a large pay raise given to Mary Easley, wife of North Carolina's former governor who is an executive-in-residence and senior lecturer at a public university.

Reporter Corey Johnson of the Fayetteville Observer placed second. The judge wrote that "Johnson did the job of a true reporter in digging out the undisclosed names of three Fayetteville State chancellor finalists. He also took the story a step higher in showing that North Carolina is alone in its secrecy rules."

Five members of The Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, placed third. The five students were Brendan Brown, Laura Marcinek, Lindsey Naylor, Rebecca Putterman and Sergio Tovar, and they were honored for their stories about UNC's new chancellor, research funding, faculty recruitment and other topics.

The Green-Rossiter Award honors the contributions of William Green, who served as Duke's director of university relations and later as university vice president during Terry Sanford's presidency at Duke, and Al Rossiter Jr., who retired in 2001 after serving 10 years as director of the Duke News Service.