Cara Peracchi Douglas was on track to graduate with her master’s degree from the Department of Media, Communications and Journalism when her husband died suddenly of a heart attack. She had to move out of the area to take a job to support her family, but graduated this past semester with top honors.

Recently, she has been selected as the winner of the 2017 Alice L. Beeman Award for Outstanding Research in Communications and Marketing for Educational Advancement from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Her research will be published in both national and international publications and she will be featured in the November/December issue of Currents Magazine.

Peracchi Douglas said losing her husband suddenly was the most difficult thing she could ever imagine. She was not prepared to manage her young family alone and handle the tidal waves of grief, let alone hold on to the hope of finishing her degree.

“Jeff was just a young man, and overnight I became a single mother of three young children and a huge stack of bills. I was beyond terrified. I couldn’t breathe for a long time. And finally, when I did allow myself to think about continuing my education, it was, ‘How can I possibly keep going?'”

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