By Lenore Devore, B.S. Journalism 1984

Samantha Chery, B.S. Journalism 2022, is proof that hard work and involvement, the ability to overcome burnout, and brushing off microaggressions pays off.

 The journalism senior received four awards at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications’ spring 2022 Awards Banquet:  the Outstanding Journalism Scholar Award, the Jean Chance Service Award, the Dean’s Cup for Scholarship, and the Dean’s Cup for Service. “I wasn’t expecting to win so many awards,” Chery said. “I’m proud of the service one, in particular. I just want to be able to help other students reach their full potential. That to me is a really valuable thing. Winning that award is a testament to my work helping other people be their best.”

She’s also the first recipient of the Tonya Harris Cornileus (B.S. Telecommunication, 1985, and 2022 Hall of Fame inductee) UFCJC Diversity in Communications Endowed Scholarship Fund for students with financial needs that are active in the National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists or Asian American Journalists Association.

“It is such an honor to be able to get support from such an accomplished woman and help carry out that diversity in communication,” Chery said. “I champion that on campus and I want to in my career as well.”

And if that was not enough, in fall 2021 she was named the first recipient of the CJC Journalism and Communications Ambassador (JCA) of the Semester Award. JCA’s are required to earn 100 points each semester for college tours and other activities. Chery completed 170 points that semester.

She also was managing editor at the College’s new narrative nonfiction magazine Atrium, a Knight Division for Scholarships and Student Inclusion student assistant, a news anchor at WUFT-TV, and a member of the Dean’s Student Advisory Council.

Chery was born in Fort Lauderdale but grew up in Ocoee, Florida. Her mother Ina is a nurse practitioner and her father Judes is an electrician. She has two older sisters.

While taking an online career-education class in middle school, a survey indicated she might excel in a career as an editor. The next summer she took her first journalism class. “From there my passion for it just grew.”

But her magnet high school specialized in the arts, and she didn’t have space in her schedule to take journalism classes. Still, she saw “how storytelling through plays and musicals was able to start a conversation and get people to think more and be more informed about the world around them. I’m really passionate about people and being able to tell people’s stories and to know what drives them in life and to learn about different backgrounds and people all around the world.”

Chery wanted to attend Columbia University but compromised with her parents and stayed in Florida, charting a course for UF. “I believe it’s the best journalism school in the state. It was a great opportunity and a compromise with my parents, who wanted me to get an affordable education where I wouldn’t have student loans, but I would also get a great journalism education.”

She started college wanting to be an international investigative journalist “to have a way to teach Americans about the rest of the world and what people are like in different cultures. But through time I really got into food.” She now aspires to be a food journalist to show “how food intersects with all the different facets of the world. Everyone loves food – it’s a great conversation starter.”

She praises three professors for their involvement in her college career:

• Journalism Lecturer Herbert Lowe, adviser for the UF chapter of NABJ, where she serves as president. Lowe pushed her to contribute a story to The Independent Florida Alligator. “I didn’t think I would be able to do it because I didn’t have those journalism classes under my belt. He told me to get out there and start getting clips and to apply for summer internships.”
• Michael and Linda Connelly Lecturer in Narrative Nonfiction Moni Basu, who teaches magazine and feature writing. Basu, who created Atrium magazine in 2021, helped Chery improve her writing and gave her someone to talk to about being a woman of color, as well as pushing her to “increase the diversity of voices within writing.” Chery has had one story published in print and hopes one she’s working on now about the women who own and run Eim Thai food truck will also be published.
• Journalism Associate Professor Norman Lewis, who teaches data journalism. “I’m very much a left-brain person, and combining journalism, which people may see as artsy, with data – he makes it so easy to learn. I’m grateful to him for making sense of numbers and how to communicate that to the audiences.”

Chery spent the summer of 2021 as a features/entertainment intern at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, her first internship in a professional newsroom. She was able to write about stories she pitched, including one on mukbang – videos where people eat large amounts of food. “I had this interest in food and they were interested in that.”

This summer she will be an intern writing features at The Washington Post. She’d love to be offered a job there, but if she’s not she’ll accept an entertainment internship at the Miami Herald.

It hasn’t all come up roses for Chery. She’s experienced what she calls microaggressions more than once during her time at UF. One time, she was one of a handful of Black students taking a reporting class in a huge lecture hall, she said. “I had my one spot that I had been sitting in all semester. One student decided that her and her friends were going to sit in that spot. It was a silent fight even just to have my seat in the class.” At the Alligator, she said she “felt like sometimes my writing was maybe questioned and scrutinized more than it would have been if I were a different skin color.”

“Even with all those things, I try to stick to the process and think about the National Association of Black Journalists and other people who have gone through similar experiences and lean on that group and know that things will get better. I don’t want that to define my career.”

The pandemic prompted her to take a step back. “It was such a huge mental obstacle for me. Spring 2020 was a very hectic semester. I was taking 16 credits, doing this internship. I was at the Alligator and doing stories for WUFT. After that semester ended, I was very burned out. At the time, I had never experienced something like that before. It was a mental hurdle to try to motivate myself to work again and write again. I took a break and was going to therapy virtually. It helped coax me out of that burnout I was experiencing.”

Two things outside of college help her with a work-life balance. She dances with a club, an outlet outside of college, she said, and she’s passionate about helping those in need following an internship on the development team with Peaceful Paths Domestic Abuse Network. “I felt that it was just a great way to combine the three things I was studying: journalism, my minors in sociology and event management. I learned more about what goes into helping domestic abuse victims. Through that, I was able to get training that other domestic violence advocates are able to receive. I was on the development side, so I learned about making newsletters and social media posts, and event planning.”

Posted: May 4, 2022
Category: College News, Profiles, Student News
Tagged as: Herbert Lowe, Moni Basu, Norman Lewis, Samantha Chery