Media Contact: Bach Polakowski,
202-588-9888 or bach@nlgja.org
NLGJA Annual Scholarship Award Winners Announced
NLGJA to Award Sixth Annual Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship and Second Annual Kay Longcope Scholarship at New York Benefit
- Washington, DC – The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) announced today that it will present two scholarship awards on Thursday, March 24, at Headlines & Headliners: NLGJA's 16th Annual New York Benefit, which will be hosted by MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts.
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.”
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 2011 award 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, N.J.
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 second annual 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.
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About the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association
NLGJA is an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators and students working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. NLGJA opposes all forms of workplace bias and provides professional development to its members. For more information on the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, visit the NLGJA Web site at https://www.nlgja.org.
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About the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund
The Delaware Valley Legacy Fund strives to increase philanthropy and grantmaking to support the community needs of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and straight-allied communities. DVLF advances philanthropy for the LGBT community through endowment building, fundraising, community outreach and education. For more information on the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, visit its Web site at http://www.dvlf.org.
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