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Southern Miss Photojournalism Project Receives $55,000 Grant |
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Thursday, September 18, 2008 |
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Contact Angela Kilcrease - 601.266.4988
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The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation has awarded The University of Southern Mississippi School of Mass Communication and Journalism a $55,000 grant to support a two-year project allowing 20 high school and college students from the region to work with several of the country’s top photojournalists.
The Southern Mississippi Photojournalism Project will be headed by Clarence Williams, who is in his third year as photojournalist in residence in the School of Mass Communication and Journalism. Williams won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography when he was a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times.
“Clarence Williams is working very hard to elevate our photojournalism program,” said Chris Campbell, director of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism. “This project will be a big step forward.”
The project will bring members of the Iris Photo Collective to the Southern Miss campus to work with students several times over the next two years. The collective is made up of Williams and three other highly respected photographers, including Andre Chung, winner of the George Polk and Robert F. Kennedy journalism awards who has worked for the Chicago Sun-Times and Baltimore Sun; and Carl Juste, a photographer for the Miami Herald and also a Kennedy award-winner.
The third member is Pablo Martinez Monsivais, a photographer for the Associated Press Washington Bureau, where he was one of a group of photographers who won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for coverage of the impeachment process during the Clinton administration.
“We formed the Iris Photo Collective because the four of us share a passion for social justice, and we believe that photojournalism has the potential to affect important societal changes,” Williams said.
Twenty students – 10 during the current academic year and 10 more in 2009-10 – will be selected to work on stories about the region that are sometimes overlooked in mainstream media coverage. Those stories will examine issues like poverty, racism and substance abuse. They will be published on the project’s Web site and in a publication modeled on the old Look and Life magazines, which featured photo essays.
“This will be an incredible opportunity for the students,” Campbell said. “We have pretty remarkable photojournalism alumni who are always willing to help us, and now we’ll be building another important partnership that will open more doors for students who will someday make their own impact as photojournalists.”
Students interested in participating can find application material on the Web site of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism: http://www.usm.edu/mcj/. They can also call the school at 601.266.4258.
The Iris Photo Collective was founded by the four photographers of color in 1998 because they were concerned with the way their communities were depicted in the media. They have covered stories in the United States as well as in Afghanistan, Angola, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Palestine and Pakistan. More information about the collective is available at http://www.irisphotocollective.com/.
The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation was established in 1982 for charitable, scientific and educational purposes, including the improvement of the quality of the practice of journalism among various media. This support includes funding for creative projects and research that promotes excellence in journalism and instills and encourages high ethical standards in journalism. More information about the foundation is available at http://www.journalismfoundation.org/.
For more information, contact Dr. Chris Campbell at
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or 601.266.6283.
Clarence Williams
About The University of Southern Mississippi
The University of Southern Mississippi, founded in 1910, is a comprehensive doctoral and research-extensive university fulfilling its mission of being a leading university in engaging and empowering individuals to transform lives and communities. In a tradition of leadership for student development, Southern Miss is educating a 21st century work force providing intellectual capital, cultural enrichment and innovation to Mississippi and the world. Southern Miss is located in Hattiesburg, Miss., with an additional campus and teaching and research sites on the Mississippi Gulf Coast; further information is found at www.usm.edu.
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