Three students who represented the College of Communications during the national championships of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program brought home one second-place finish and a total of $7,000 in scholarship support.
In the recently concluded competition, Andrew McGill, a sophomore from Wyncote, finished second in the writing competition and earned a $4,000 scholarship. In addition, Angela Haupt, a junior from Mohrsville, and Aaron Patterson, a native of Evans, Ga., who graduated in December, were runners-up in writing and television news, respectively, with each earning $1,500 scholarships.
The three students were among 24 nationally who qualified for the individual national championships in San Francisco and paced the college's latest performance in a contest open to the country's 108 nationally accredited journalism-mass communication programs. The Hearst Journalism Awards Program, often called "the Pulitzers of college journalism," attracted 992 entrants in all categories from across the country during the 2007-08 academic year.
Only one other university, Missouri, qualified three students for the San Francisco competition.
The 24 students who qualified for the individual national championships included eight in writing, six in photo, five in radio and five in television.
Overall, the College of Communications finished third in intercollegiate broadcast news, fourth in writing, first in the combined writing-broadcasting point totals and second in the combined writing-broadcasting-photojournalism standings. The college's first-place finish in the combined writing-broadcasting standings was its highest ever-as was its second-place finish in the combined writing-broadcasting-photojournalism standings.
This marked the eighth consecutive year the college has earned a top-10 finish in intercollegiate writing. It finished eighth in 2001, second in 2002, second in 2003, third in 2004, third in 2005, seventh in 2006 and fourth in 2007.
The college finished seventh in broadcast in 2002 -- its first-ever year in the top 10 -- and followed that performance with a third-place finish in 2003, sixth in 2004, fifth in 2005, fourth in 2006 and eighth in 2007.
Final school standings are computed based on the accumulated points of individual students from each institution.
All students who finish in the top 10 receive scholarships, with matching grants awarded to their institutions. All students who finish in the top 20 receive scrolls.
The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is conducted under the auspices of the 108 accredited units of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication and is funded by the Hearst Foundation, which provides more than $550,000 annually in student scholarships and matching grants. The competition is in its 48th year and is administered through the foundation's offices in San Francisco.