Journalism scholarships and awards are open
Colorado College journalism news for Block 4
With journalism scholarship season in full swing, below are some Colorado-based opportunities at which you should not sneeze.
This newsletter includes details on how to apply and your chances of winning.
👀 These honors look great on a résumé and the networking availabilities at the award ceremonies are invaluable.
John C. Ensslin Memorial Scholarship Fund ($1.5k - $3k)
This is the Denver Press Club’s annual student contest. A Colorado College student has won the top award twice since we were invited to apply in 2020. Winners get to attend the annual banquet in Denver where they accept the award.
Deadline Feb. 28, opened Dec. 2
“The purpose of the Denver Press Club‘s John C. Ensslin Memorial Scholarship program is to support students who are committed and engaged in the field of journalism. An additional scholarship is dedicated each year to a promising photojournalism student under the Walter Baas Scholarship Program. “
The judges only accept applications from students at nine colleges in the state, including CC, so that’s who you’re up against.
🔑 #PROTIP: Read the guidelines and eligibility closely. From what we understand, the judges look at a body of work, not just one piece when making their decisions. You’ll see you can send multiple samples, so show your versatility in substance and in medium if appropriate.
Let’s see if Colorado College can represent again. Find all the details here.
Society of Professional Journalists 2024 scholarship
As a board member of the Colorado chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, I’ll let you in on a secret: Your chances of winning this are strong.
That’s not because I have any influence as a judge (I’m not even a judge) but because I know how many applications the chapter gets each year. (Spoiler: not many). So, if you believe in your work, I strongly recommend you apply ASAP.
Details here:
Helen Verba Award
Print/convergent scholarships of up to $5,000 sponsored by the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists
This scholarship is open to high school seniors and college and university students attending any accredited U.S. college or university. To be considered, applicants must plan on entering a career in print or digital journalism and be from or living in Colorado.
A concise cover letter that may include a statement of financial need and that explains how the applicant intends to use the scholarship. An essay (no more than 500 words) illustrating the applicant’s writing abilities and plans for a career in journalism.
The names and contact information for three references.
A current resume.
Three published stories.
Applications must be postmarked or received at the email address below by Feb. 14, 2025. Scholarship recipients will be notified in the spring and will be invited to attend an awards banquet in the Denver area. The scholarship money will be paid to the student’s institution. All award amounts will be decided by the SPJ Scholarship Committee.
Email completed applications to Doug Bell at dgoal@aol.com.
And this one…
Sheldon Peterson Award
Broadcast journalism scholarships of up to $5,000 sponsored by the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists
This scholarship is open to high school seniors and college and university students attending any accredited U.S. college or university. To be considered, applicants must plan on entering a career in broadcast journalism and be from or living in Colorado.
A concise cover letter that may include a statement of financial need and that explains how the applicant intends to use the scholarship. An essay (no more than 500 words) that illustrates the applicant’s writing abilities and plans for a career in broadcast journalism.
The names and contact information for three references.
A current resume.
Three work samples.
Applications must be postmarked or received at the email address below by Feb. 14, 2025. Scholarship recipients will be notified in the spring and will be invited to attend an awards banquet in the Denver area. The scholarship money will be paid to the student’s institution. All award amounts will be decided by the SPJ Scholarship Committee.
Email completed applications to Doug Bell at dgoal@aol.com.
Scholarship recipients will be notified in the spring and will be invited to an awards banquet in the Denver area. The scholarship money will be paid to the student’s institution. All award amounts will be decided by the SPJ scholarship committee.
Also, if you are practicing journalism, you should seriously consider joining the state chapter of SPJ. Learn more about our state’s Society of Professional Journalists chapter here, and find out how to join here. We have student rates.
Membership gets you a press card you can use as a credential for events you plan to cover or to more easily identify you as a journalist when you’re reporting in the field. If you have any questions about SPJ membership, I’m happy to help.
🔑 #PROTIP: Make sure you subscribe to and follow the Inside the Newsroom journalism job board and newsletter for more information about scholarship opportunities outside Colorado.
Let us know if we can help in any way as you put your applications together.
👀 Speaking of SPJ … our state chapter just voted to support a student journalism project
This week, the CU Independent student publication at the University of Colorado in Boulder was trying to raise money via a GoFundMe campaign to send folks from their reporting team to cover a CU Buffs football bowl game or playoff.
Look who’s the largest donor to the campaign: It’s the state chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists of which one of the students who reached out to the chapter is a member.
The board of the Colorado Pro Chapter of SPJ voted on whether to donate to the cause, and chose to do so in this particular case.
Might CC’s student newspaper ever be in a financial crunch for a reporting project and be looking for ways to raise money and support? Consider whether an SPJ membership might help.
Summer internship opportunity: Journalism and threats to democracy
Are you a CC student interested in doing some accountability watchdog journalism this summer? Reach out about a potential new opportunity.
Last summer we had two students in a nonprofit newsroom in El Paso, Texas. This summer it might be based in Colorado with some borderlands travel built in.
🚨 Seniors, check in about your minor
If you’re a senior expecting to graduate in May with a journalism minor, please get in touch with your minor advisor to see where you stand.
If you have already done this, and some of you have, you can disregard.
🆕 New Half Block: ‘Sound Design’ taught by a CC alum
Colorado College alum Max Sarkowsky will be offering a half-block on Sound Design that includes a weekend trip to Baca.
It is cross-listed between music and theatre and might also be of interest to any audio-oriented journalism students.
“For every day of the half-block, students listen to a different episode of either 20,000 hz, an accessible and in-depth podcast on all things sound, or Conversations with Sound Designers, an interview podcast with sound designers sponsored by the National Theatre in London,” Sarkowsky says. “I will curate which of the many episodes the class will listen to based on everyone’s interests gathered via email.”
Feel free to reach out if you’d like to see the full lesson plan for the half block. Here are the details on the Baca trip:
Weekend [leave Friday eve, Days 6-7] – at Baca. Gathering sounds, building your own sound library. Learning recording techniques including Binaural. I will travel with students to Baca and run a weekend long field recording workshop. They should leave this with a library of sounds to use in their projects and beyond. A small Zoom handy recorder will be needed for each student, Music department has these as well as AV. The goal of this weekend is to do some work, but also have a weekend in a beautiful place together, and continue our deep listening practice. We will return to campus Sunday late morning.
Reach out to Dean Ryan Bañagale (rbanagale@coloradocollege.edu) with any questions.
More opportunities for 2024
We’re adding to our steady stable of internship and practicum opportunities this year. Here’s the latest:
🏆 The Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence awards opened last month with a deadline of Feb. 4. CC students have won these in the past, and they don’t have to be pieces you’ve written for a campus publication. “In addition to physical awards and recognition, two awards carry cash prizes.”
🆕 The CC Outdoor Journal is seeking submissions for the 2025 print edition. “We’re looking for written essays, photo spreads, poetry, artwork, and anything in between,” says Veronica Bianco. Click here for a contributor guide for more information, and here for a link to submit your ideas. Email ccoutdoorjournal@gmail.com with any questions.
🗞 The Valley Courier in Alamosa is looking to host CC news reporting interns. “We are located in the San Luis Valley, about 50 miles south of the Colorado College Baca Campus,” says editor John Waters. Get in touch at jwaters@alamosanews.com.
📰 Local Colorado Springs publisher Dirk Hobbs, founder of Colorado Media Group, is open to internship opportunities from CC students for his outlets that include NORTH magazine and the Southern Colorado Business Forum & Digest (The Digest digital and print version). Let Corey know if you’d like an introduction.
➡️ Journalism classes we’re offering this year
Here’s what we have on our course grid for this semester and the next:
Block 5: In “Radio Journalism” with Steven Hayward and Peter Breslow, the former senior producer for NPR, you’ll learn your way around audio broadcast journalism.
Block 5: “Introduction to Journalism,” taught by Corey Hutchins, will teach you what sets journalism apart from other forms of communication, why it’s important to society, and, most importantly, how to do it. By the end of the class you’ll wind up with stories you can publish in the campus newspaper and beyond.
Block 6: “Financial and business reporting,” is led by Heather Perlberg, a senior reporter for Bloomberg who covers wealth and the 1%, and is a CC grad. In it you’ll learn about the world of reporting on business and industry. Bloomberg reporters Kathy Burton and Annie Massa will teach the class as well.
Block 6: “Secrecy, Surveillance, and Democracy,” taught by Diane Alters and Juan D. Lindau, teaches at the intersection of those three themes.
Block 7: In “Reporting on Wildfires,” taught by Corey Hutchins, students will learn how to better cover wildfires, which are getting bigger, hotter, and more frequent out here in the West. This is a field trip class and you’ll publish your reporting at Burning Questions.
All of these classes count toward the journalism minor. If you have any questions about them get in touch with Corey.
More odds & ends of interest to CC journalism students
🗞 Stay informed: Make sure you are reading each week’s edition of the Catalyst student newspaper cover to cover and letting its editors know if there’s something you think their reporters should report.
💻 Get involved: Make yourself acquainted with all of the campus publications at Colorado College here.
😬 Bill Grueskin at CJR wrote a deeply reported story and analysis about the tensions involved in being a journalist on campus at the mercy and whims of an institution — especially when covering protests. “Dilan Gohill won an award for his work at the Stanford Daily, but his coverage of campus protests has set university officials against him.”
🐯 Can we beat it?: Colorado College journalism students produced “nearly 200 stories for local news outlets in 2023.” (CC students this year have already been pumping out work in The Denver Post, Colorado Politics, The Gazette, Axios Denver, and elsewhere.)
💸 Take advantage: As a CC student you get free access to the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the Economist magazine, and more, which can save you a lot of money on subscriptions. You can sign up through Tutt Library. Find more information about how to access these publications and others here.
🔥Burnout: In 2021, CC journalism minor Miriam Brown wrote a sociology thesis paper titled “Experiences of Burnout Among Student-Journalists at a Private Liberal Arts College,” which you can read here. “This study attempts to examine not only how burnout manifests in student-journalists, but also why it occurs in the first place,” she wrote.
📍 Bookmark these journalism resources
Make sure you’re keeping up with the latest trends in journalism (including student journalism) by bookmarking some of these outlets and keeping up to speed:
Inside The Newsroom — The Newsletter For Journalists (featuring journalism jobs, internships, and opportunities)
The Nugraf, a weekly newsletter by Chatman Monkol about student journalism, featuring “original reporting on the state of student journalism and dedicated sections for showcasing stories by student journalists and highlighting industry opportunities.” (Warning: students who took Inbox Journalism might be envious of Mongkol’s slam-dunk idea for a national newsletter.)
Don’t fall prey to the “News Finds Me” phenomenon, and make sure you’re always actively seeking out news and information.
📝 Have you officially registered for the journalism minor?
Do you identify as a journalism minor but might not actually be registered as one on paper?
Here are the requirements for a journalism minor at CC:
“Introduction to Journalism” and three other topics in journalism classes or others that qualify from English or film and media.
Complete an internship.
Complete a practicum: a long-form piece of journalism in the medium of your choice published outside of a campus publication (what’s your dream outlet? Let’s try!)
If you want to register for the minor, fill out this online form. Put Corey Hutchins down as your advisor, and I’ll sign off on it. Then let’s meet to talk about what you might want to consider for an internship or practicum.
Get in touch
As always, feel free to get in touch any time, or let me know if you want us to take you off this list. — Corey Hutchins, manager, Colorado College Journalism Institute