Five college students with strikingly different backgrounds have won $8,500 in scholarships to pursue the craft that unites them: editing. The money comes from fundraising by the American Copy Editors Society.
The top winner, Kathryn Krawczyk, a leading editor at Syracuse University’s independent student newspaper and an honors student, is receiving a $2,500 scholarship. Krawczyk also has been co-captain of the university’s English equestrian team and she organized a weekly farmers market with 40 vendors in her upstate New York hometown, Lockport.
The other four students receive $1,500 scholarships. They are:
Natalia Alamdari, an editor at the Columbia Missourian, the daily newspaper of the University of Missouri. She has been a marketing and design assistant for the university’s execMBA program and a writing tutor for students across all majors and many nationalities.
Beverly Godfrey, a student in the graduate teaching program of the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn. She has more than 24 years of experience as an editor, fact checker, writer and graphic designer, and wrote in her application: “If I were selected, the money would help me teach students in grades 5-12 to care about the things copy editors care about.”
Danny Nett, online managing editor of the Daily Tar Heel at the University of North Carolina. He wrote, “I’m a digital journalist interested in personalizing news and making media more accessible for people of underrepresented identities. I strive to build communities and help diversify journalism.”
Harri Leigh Plotnick, a Syracuse University graduate student (online) who works as a multimedia journalist for a TV station in Marquette, Mich. She has been an intern with TV stations in Philadelphia and New Orleans – and for the U.S. State Department in Italy.
In addition to the scholarships, the winners receive financial support to help them attend ACES’ three-day skill-building conference, which this year will be in St. Petersburg, Fla., March 23-25.
The five professionals who judged the scholarship applications are Lindsay Augustyn, Carol Carpenter, Jeff Kleinman, David Sheets and Diego Sorbara.
The American Copy Editors Society is an alliance of editors working at newspapers, magazines, websites, Fortune 500 companies, other businesses and nonprofits, as well as freelance editors, students and their professors. The ACES Education Fund has awarded a total of 93 scholarships to students who have a passion for editing.
