ACES scholarships change lives.
Audrey Kuo and Andrea Halland are two of the nearly 150 scholarship recipients since 1999, when the ACES Education Fund was founded. The awards total more than $100,000, raised entirely by individual donations.
“This award allowed me to connect with a network of editors both in person and online,” said Halland, who was named a Walsh Scholar in 2020-21 when she was a student at the University of Montana. “Because of the financial assistance, I was able to attend the ACES conference, which nurtured my passion for editing and introduced me to new possibilities and learning opportunities.”
Halland is now an editor at Mountain Press Publishing and owner of Editing By Andrea.
An ACES scholarship also offers community and connection, she said. Kuo agreed.
“I felt seen and cared for by many ACES leaders and members who offered warm welcomes, advice, and informal mentorship,” said Kuo, who was named the Aubespin Scholar in 2008-09.
“For several years after graduating from UCLA, I was invited to teach copy editing and journalistic ethics for the Daily Bruin, where I was able to draw on the engaging, illuminating workshops and conversations that I participated in through ACES.”
Editing and journalism gave them a strong and useful foundation, said Kuo, who noted that they went on to become the co-creator of Freedom Verses, a strategic planning and consultancy firm.
“These lessons and the rigorous attention to the power dynamics of language continue to guide my work as an organizer and facilitator working toward collective liberation,” they said. “As a trans person of color, I encourage editors to consider the professional obligation that copy editors have in maintaining not just style and grammar consistency, but the discernment, skepticism, and ethical discipline necessary to create meaningful journalism that contests contests power and propaganda and disrupts oppression.”
The ACES Education Fund Scholarships
By giving six awards to college and graduate students who plan to pursue editing as a career, the ACES Education Fund helps ensure the future of our profession.
Those six include the Aubespin Scholarship, a $2,500 award that honors Merv Aubespin, an early proponent of the formation of ACES. The Bill Walsh Scholarship, a $3,500 award, is named for the late, legendary Washington Post copy editor, author, and member of the ACES Education Fund board of directors. The Walsh Scholarship is awarded to a college student who aspires to edit the news.
The ACES Education Fund also awards up to six Richard S. Holden Diversity Fellowships annually, given in partnership with the Dow Jones News Fund. The Holden Award is dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion by advancing early- and mid-career professionals in their work as editors and aspiring industry leaders.
Please donate generously this holiday season and help ACES reach our goal of 131 donors and $13,131. See below for ways to give:
