NLGJA awards to be presented this week.
The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) announced two scholarship awards to be presented next Thursday, March 24, at Headlines & Headliners: NLGJA’s 16th Annual New York Benefit, which will be hosted by MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts.The recipient of the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship is Sharyn Jackson. Jackson graduated from New York University with a degree in history and currently attends Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she concentrates on magazine writing. She lives with her partner, actor Laryssa Husiak, in Jersey City.
The Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship was established in 2006 through a gift by CNN. Named in memory of Leroy F. Aarons, founder of NLGJA and a founding member of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship was established to support the education of a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student pursuing a journalism career.
The second scholarship, The Kay Longcope Scholarship Award, seeks to further the role of diversity in the education of our next generation of newsroom leaders by providing tuition assistance to a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student of color who plans a career in journalism. Longcope was co-founder of The Texas Triangle, a statewide newsweekly focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, and is generally regarded as the first out reporter at the Boston Globe. The pioneering Longcope started writing for the Globe in 1970 and was there for more than 20 years, including a tenure as the paper’s religion editor.
The recipient of the Kay Longcope Scholarship Award is Fenit Nirappil, a third-year journalism and political science student at Northwestern University in the Medill School of Journalism. Nirappil has taken a specialty in LGBT issues, reporting about issues like HIV among young gay men, discrimination against bisexuals in Chicago and same-sex marriage in South Africa.
The scholarship funds are administered through a partnership between NLGJA and The Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, a donor-advised fund of the Philadelphia Foundation that works to advance philanthropy through endowment building, fundraising, community outreach and education within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Both scholarships – worth $5,000 each – are awarded each year to deserving students who are dedicated to furthering NLGJA’s mission of fostering fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. “NLGJA is thrilled to be able to be able to support the next generation of journalists,” says David Steinberg, NLGJA National President. “We believe that scholarships like this can make an incredible difference in the professional future of student-journalists.”
For more information visit the NLGJA Web site at http://www.nlgja.org.
NLGJA awards to be presented this week.
The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) announced two scholarship awards to be presented next Thursday, March 24, at Headlines & Headliners: NLGJA’s 16th Annual New York Benefit, which will be hosted by MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts.The recipient of the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship is Sharyn Jackson. Jackson graduated from New York University with a degree in history and currently attends Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she concentrates on magazine writing. She lives with her partner, actor Laryssa Husiak, in Jersey City.
