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Scholarships and Awards

Submitted by amoore9 on August 23, 2007 - 3:13pm.

Many scholarships and awards are made available through the School of Journalism and Electronic Media. For more information or an application, contact the School's staff or Director. Scholarship applications are due on February 1 each year. See the Financial Aid Office for application forms. Click the name for more information on each award.

Scholarships

Awards

National Competitive Awards

Students in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media can also compete for national recognition for their student work. JEM students have regularly won awards and scholarships in these national competitions. Following is a list of some of those Competitions and Awards.

The Chronicle of Higher Education invites applications for a $2,000 award for student journalists, in memory of a former staff reporter. Details on the annual prize are available on the Chronicle Web site at http://chronicle.com/help/milleraward.htm. The deadline to apply for the award this year is June 30.

The Broadcast Education Association sponsors a Student Festival that awards student acheivements in scriptwriting, news, audio, video, and interactive multimedia production. For more information, visit http://www.beafestival.org/student.html

The William Randolph Hearst Foundation sponsors the Hearst Journalism Awards, in which more than $400,000 in scholarships and grants will be awarded to students and schools. There are six writing, three photojournalism, two radio broadcast news and two television broadcast news competitions each academic year, beginning in October and ending in April. The monthly competitions honor the top ten winners with awards ranging from $500 to $2,000, with the schools receiving matching grants. The competition year culminates in June with the National Writing, Photojournalism and Broadcast News Championships, and is open to selected winning students from the monthly competitions who also receive additional awards. For more information, visit http://www.hearstfdn.org/hearst_journalism/

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) sponsors the Mark of Excellence Awards, honoring the best in student journalism. The awards offer 45 categories for print, radio, television, and online collegiate journalism. Entries are first judged on the regional level. Regional award winners were honored at SPJ's spring regional conferences. Regional first-place winning entries are forwarded to the national competition. For more information, visit http://www.spj.org/awards_moe.asp

Scholarships

The Alex Haley/Playboy Interview Scholarship

The Alex Haley/Playboy Interview Scholarship in Magazine Journalism has been established in recognition of writer and historian Alex Haley's outstanding contributions to the field of magazine journalism and American literature. Haley conducted the first Playboy Interview in 1962 and was a contributor to the magazine until his death in 1992.

The scholarship recipient must be enrolled as a full-time undergraduate upperclassman or master's degree student and have a minumum grade point average of 3.0 in the College of Communications' journalism program. The award will be based on academic performance, professional promise and financial need. The scholarship provides an annual stipend of $5,000 and includes a paid summer internship at the editorial offices of Playboy in New York City.

The selection of the scholarship recipient will be made each year by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, School of Journalism Scholarship Selection Committee.

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Amanda Bonham Journalism Award

Applicants are to be graduates of Tennessee high schools, wishing to major in journalism. Awards are made to incoming Freshmen.

Frederick T. Bonham, a 1909 graduate of the UT College of Law, worked as a business manager and associate publisher of the Knoxville Journal-Tribune. In 1929 he accepted a position with the the New York Times and remained in New York as its personnel director for 25 years. His will provided for a scholarship honoring his mother Amanda Minnis Bonham.

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Frederick Bonham Scholarship

Applicants are to be graduates of Tennessee high schools, wishing to major in journalism. Awards are made to incoming freshmen.

Frederick T. Bonham, a 1909 graduate of the UT College of Law, worked as a business manager and associate publisher of the Knoxville Journal-Tribune. In 1929 he accepted a position with the New York Times and remained in New York as its personnel director for 25 years.

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Francis X. (Red) O'Donnell Scholarship

Awarded annually to an entering freshman or transfer student in journalism. The recipient will be an outstanding graduate of an accredited Tennessee high school. The student must have at least a 3.0 high school grade point average and at least a 25 cumulative ACT score. He or she must have participated in journalism in high school and be committed to a career in print journalism.

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Zack Binkley Memorial Scholarship

The Binkley Scholarship is available to currently enrolled students in the College of Communications. The award will be made to a full-time undergraduate student in the School of Journalism in the journalism concentration, with a minimum 3.0 grade point average. It will be awarded to recognize excellence in journalistic writing, as demonstrated by outstanding performance in extracurricular or classroom writing activities.

Roy A. "Zack" Binkley, executive editor of the News-Press at Fort Myers, Fla., died of cancer in 1995 at age 43. He was an enthusiastic graduate of the journalism program at UT, and one of the first editors to embrace graphics and visual communication in the presentation of the day's news.

A native of Nashville, Binkley earned a bachelor�s degree in journalism at UTK in 1975. During his time on the Knoxville campus, he was a politically active student who worked on the copy desk of the Daily Beaconand wrote for Common Sense, an anti-Vietnam war underground newspaper.

Shortly after graduating from UTK, Binkley began his professional career at the Bradenton (Fla.) Herald. In 1977, Binkley joined the staff of the Knoxville Journal as a copy editor, and later became the Journal�sgraphics editor, assistant managing editor, and, in 1985, the managing editor.

In 1987, Binkley became the editor of his own newspaper, the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, W. Va. In 1991, he became editor of the Lansing (Mich.) State Journal, then moved to the Fort Myers newspaper as executive editor in 1994.

Throughout his career, Binkley distinguished himself as a tough but fair journalist, who stood steadfastly for integrity and independence in the media.

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Tutt and Elizabeth Bradford Journalism Scholarship

Bradford Scholarship recipients must be juniors or seniors majoring in journalism. Awards will be made on the basis of academic achievement and performance within the field of study (first consideration) and financial need (second consideration).

Tutt S. Bradford was the publisher of the Maryville-Alcoa Times (now The Daily Times, Maryville-Alcoa, Tenn.) when he created a co-op position for students in journalism to obtain field experience at his newspaper. He and his wife later endowed a fund in the College of Communication for scholarships in journalism and advertising.

The Bradford Endowment also funds professional activities at the School of Journalism including a visiting editor program and travel grants to faculty and students to attend national professional newspaper meetings.

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Janet Fay Breazeale Memorial Scholarship in Journalism

The Janet F. Breazeale Scholarship is presented annually to a full-time undergraduate student enrolled in the School of Journalism with a minimum 3.0 grade point average. The recipient should have demonstrated professional promise in journalism by distinguished work in curricular or extra-curricular activities.

The award honors the short career of Janet Breazeale who died at 33 after a successful career in public relations in Nashville. After receiving a B.S. in journalism from UT in 1981, she was a reporter with the Kingsport Times-News, editor of Tennessee Business magazine, assistant manager of public relations for South Central Bell, and finally vice president and editorial director at Buntin Public Relations Co. She had completed the coursework for the MS in Communications at UTK, which was awarded posthumously.

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Nat P. Caldwell Public Service Scholarship

Named in honor of Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nat Caldwell, who worked at the Tennessean, Nashville, from 1934 until his death in 1985, the fund is used for scholarships for outstanding students at the School of Journalism.

Caldwell won the Pulitzer prize in 1962 (with Gene Graham) for a series of stories exposing undercover cooperation between management interest in the coal industry and United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis. He also went disguised in a false beard and dark glasses to a nursing home and wrote a series of stories that resulted in sweeping changes in the treatment of Tennessee's elderly people. But the stories Caldwell claimed the most pride in were written in 1947, and predicted the migration of the black population from southern agricultural states to the industrial cities in the north.

Caldwell was born in St. Charles Mo., and attended school in Lakeland, Fla. He began his newspaper career in 1931 as the one-man staff of the smallest daily newspaper in the state, the Trenton Daily Bulletin.

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Georgiana Fry Vines Scholarship

The Georgiana Fry Vines Scholarship is available to currently enrolled students in the College of Communication. The award will be made to a full-time undergraduate student in the School of Journalism with a minimum 3.0 grade point average. The recipient will have demonstrated professional promise by having distinguished him/herself in curricular or extracurricular journalistic activities.

Ms. Vines was editor of the El Paso Herald-Post when the E. W. Scripps Co. ended its joint printing agreement and closed the newspaper in 1997. She returned to the Knoxville News-Sentinel as deputy managing editor.

After serving as a reporter at newspapers in Florida and Wisconsin, Vines began her career in 1968 as a News-Sentinel reporter. Over the next 10 years, she won awards for public affairs reporting and outstanding journalism. She was named assistant metro editor in 1978 and metro editor in 1987.

Her professional activities include extensive work with the Society of Professional Journalists. As a past president of that national organization, she chaired its Leaders Council and served as a board member of its education and fund-raising organization.

Vines received a bachelor's degree from Florida State University and did graduate work at UTK. She is an honorary member of the Willis Tucker chapter of Kappa Tau Alpha, national honor society in journalism and mass communication.

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Nellie D. Kenyon Scholarship

The scholarship is awarded to a member of any class in the School of Journalism, and an individual may receive the award more than once. The recipient will be selected annually on the basis of academic achievement and financial need. The recipient must be pursuing a major in journalism (news writing) with an intent to establish a career in newspaper journalism. Preference is given to a female resident of the State of Tennessee.

"Miss Nellie," as she was known to all her colleagues and newsmakers, was one of the state's pioneer women reporters. She set up the scholarship to aid college women in Tennessee achieve careers in newspaper journalism. She began her career at the old Chattanooga News, where one of her first major assignments was coverage of the Scopes "monkey trial" in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925. She moved to The Tennessean in 1940 and became the paper's Capitol Hill reporter, covering all departments of state government. She later became the federal beat reporter before retiring in 1970 after 30 years with the Nashville newspaper. During her colorful career, Kenyon interviewed many well-known people, including former presidents Warren Harding, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.

But, perhaps her best-remembered reporting was her coverage of the trials of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa is said to have called her "the most persistent woman I have ever known." She died in 1982.

Knoxville News-Sentinel Scholarships

The Knoxville News-Sentinel Scholarships will be presented annually to students with outstanding scholarship, professional promise and demonstrated financial need.

The newspaper is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company of Cincinnati. Its circulation exceeds 117,000 daily and 168,000 on Sundays. It is one of 20 newspapers in the company that also operates large market television stations; a television production company, United Media, a syndicator of news features and comics; and Home and Garden Television and the Food Network, 24-hour cable television networks.

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Kelly Leiter Scholarship

The Kelly Leiter Scholarship is given annually to a journalism student in news and public affairs. In making selections, consideration is given to the student's academic scholarship, professional promise and financial need.

Dr. B. Kelly Leiter is Edward D. Meeman Distinguished Professor of Journalism and Dean Emeritus of the College of Communications. He joined the UTK faculty in 1966 after teaching and serving as publisher of the Daily Egyptian at Southern Illinois University. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism at Indiana University, and master's and doctoral degrees at Southern Illinois University.

Dean Leiter worked as general assignment reporter, local and state government reporter, entertainment writer, feature writer, radio-television columnist, picture editor, makeup editor, assistant city editor, special sections editor and managing editor at the Hialeah (Fla.) Home News, the Washington Star, the Chicago Daily News, the Indianapolis News and the Rockford  (Ill.) Morning Star. He was Midwest regional correspondent for Life Magazine (part-time).

He wrote (with Julian Harriss) The Complete Reporter, a popular news writing, reporting and editing textbook used in nearly 200 colleges and universities. It is now in its eighth edition. He also wrote two books, Knoxville Impressions and Knoxville Then & Now (with photographer Gary Heatherly), and numerous articles and special projects.

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David F. Mould Scholarship

The Mould Scholarship is awarded annually to an in-state, undergraduate journalism major with a 3.0 grade-point average and financial need. Preference is given to a current or former staff member of The Daily Beacon.

The scholarship was inaugurated in 1997 when Mould reached his 40th birthday. He was editor of The Daily Beacon in 1980. Not one to misspell a name, the honoree of this scholarship admits his middle name is Ross, and that the initial in the award title is a "private joke"!

Mould's career took him to United Press International as a writer and reporter in several bureaus and eventually to work in public relations for a utility company in Atlanta.

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Tom Siler Scholarship

This award goes to a junior or senior majoring in journalism and planning a career in news work. Financial need in the broadest sense is taken into consideration and is more of a factor than grade point average. A recipient may reapply for the award.

Tom Siler was a University of Tennessee graduate, and during a long and distinguished career was a noted author, nationally recognized sports writer, and served as sports editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel. He was reared in Jellico, Tenn.

Siler wrote four books including Tennessee Cities and Towns-Adamsville to Yorktown (in 1985). He wrote three books on the Vols including Through the Years with the Volunteers, Tennessee-Football's Greatest Dynasty, and Tennessee's Dazzling Decade-1960-70. He served as president of the Football Writers of America and was honored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

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Society of Professional Journalists Scholarship

The money for the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Scholarship is raised each year by the East Tennessee Professional Chapter from its production of the Front Page Follies. The scholarship is awarded to a student who attended a high school in East Tennessee. The main criterion is professional promise in journalism or broadcast news.

The Follies is a dinner and show roasting newsmakers and news events of the past year. The fundraising event was founded in 1979 under the leadership of chapter officers Jeff Bradley, Catherine Foster, and Jim Crook.

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Tom Sweeten Journalism Scholarship

The Tom Sweeten Memorial Fund provides an annual scholarship in the name of a former managing editor of The Knoxville Journal, Charles H. "Tom" Sweeten. He also worked in public relations at the Tennessee Valley Authority and taught news writing courses at the School of Journalism.

The award is made to a full-time undergraduate student in the School of Journalism with a 3.0 grade point average. The recipient will have demonstrated professional promise by  a distinguished record in curricular or extra-curricular journalistic activities.

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Escar Thompson Memorial Award

The Escar Thompson award goes to journalism major who is completing the junior year. The recipient should show professional promise in news reporting or editing.

The award honors the career of one of Tennessee's most respected newsmen until his retirement from the Associate Press in 1976. He was bureau chief in Knoxville for 30 years and wrote the big stories about TVA, Oak Ridge, elections, football, floods - anything that happened in East Tennessee that was of interest across the state and nation.

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James Wolfkiel Scholarship in Graphic Arts

The James Wolfkiel Scholarship in Graphic Arts is presented to juniors or seniors majoring in journalism with a special interest in graphic arts. Selection is based on academics, need, talent and a degree of interest and determination in seriously pursuing a career in graphic arts in journalism. Students seeking a career in journalism with aptitude in graphic design, photography or management of newspaper journalism receive priority in the selection process.  A junior may reapply for the scholarship during his or her senior year.

The late James Wolfkiel worked in the photoengraving department of Knoxville's two newspapers for more than 40 years. He organized the new photoengraving department that served both newspapers since they had entered a joint printing agreement. He set high standards of professionalism.

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Richard L. Worden Memorial Scholarship

The Richard Lewis Worden Memorial Scholarship is given to a full-time journalism major with a grade point average of 3.0 or higher and demonstrated professional promise in journalistic activities.

The scholarship honors the career of Richard Worden, a 1973 UT journalism graduate, who achieved an admirable record in journalism in a short time at the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle, WDEF-TV in Chattanooga, the Memphis Press-Scimitar and the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Worden died unexpectedly at 42 of complications from a wound he received in Vietnam.

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Awards

Scripps Howard Ernie Pyle Memorial Award

The Ernie Pyle Award is presented annually to the journalism student of the year. It honors an outstanding graduating senior who shows professional promise and has a high grade average. The first award was given in 1960, and the annual cash award is financed by a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation from the royalties received from sales of the noted World War II correspondent's books. Recipients are encouraged to use part of their awards for books for their personal professional library.

(Ernest Taylor Pyle, the Hoosier combat correspondent, wrote approximately 400,000 words from combat zones in both the European and Pacific Theaters between 1942 and 1945. He was one of 37 correspondents who lost their lives in battle. And he was one of an estimated 1,600 correspondents who reported from the battlefields of World War II. He was killed by a Japanese sniper's bullet in April of 1945.)

The award program was created by Willis C. Tucker, founding director of the School of Journalism, and Loye W. Miller, editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Previous Ernie Pyle Award winners

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Dr. Peter Gross, Director

333 Communications Building
College of Communication
and Information
The University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-0333

Phone: 865-974-5155
Fax: 865-974-5056

Eddie Jenkins, Web site editor

E-mail: ejenkin9 (at) utk.edu