Pulitzer Center Update January 13, 2025
Celebrating a Year of Student Connections
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Inspiring events connect tomorrow’s leaders with the issues of today
Dear Reporting Fellows, Alums, and Campus Consortium Partners,
As we ring in the new year and begin planning for the spring, we’re taking a moment to reflect on an excellent year of connecting tomorrow’s decision-makers with today’s issues. In 2024, we organized more than 200 events drawing over 6,000 students and community members at our Campus Consortium partners.
Over 100 graduate students attended a workshop at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism that included training by the Dart Center, examples of trauma-informed storytelling by Pulitzer Center grantee Justin Maxon, and discussions about reporting on mental well-being in the U.S. with Maxon, Reporting Fellow alum Emanuella Evans, and MindSite News reporter Josh McGhee.
Rainforest Journalism Fund grantee Fredrick Mugira traveled from Uganda to the U.S. to present with grantee Ann Neumann about their reporting on the Nile River basin, a hotspot for biodiversity, as well as geopolitical tension. Together, they reached nearly 300 students at Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium partners Spelman College, Huston-Tillotson University, and three K-12 schools.
Brazilian journalist Fernanda Wenzel, a 2022 Rainforest Investigations Fellow, brought her reporting on the Amazon’s deforestation to students at Davidson College, Northwestern Medill's D.C. newsroom, and Elon University with former Rainforest Investigations Fellow Andrew Lehren.
Hunter College hosted grantees and OpenMind Magazine Editors-in-Chief Corey Powell and Pamela Weintraub for classroom visits, lunch with students, and a presentation at the Roosevelt House to help students examine where bias and misinformation manifest in science communications.
In addition to many more campus visits investigating global health, climate, peace and conflict, AI and information, and human rights, more than 600 students participated in skills-building workshops at four partner campuses. Grantee Justin Cook supplemented curriculum with expertise in photography and visual storytelling at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Wake Forest. Students at Northwestern University in Qatar explored the intersections of land, culture, and resilience through grantees Pablo Albarenga’s and Lexi Parra’s documentary photography. William & Mary called curious students to join the Sharp Seminar, where 12 students sharpened their reporting skills with individualized advising from journalist Noah Robertson and grantees Caleb Hellerman and Stephanie Hanes.
Building on our successes of 2024, we’re excited to continue empowering students this year with skills and knowledge to succeed in their careers, in journalism and beyond.
Cheers,
The Campus Consortium Team
Featured Visual
Domarion Nunez and Kevin Robinson walk toward town on April 26, 2024, in Cairo, Illinois. Many kids who are growing up in communities that suffer from limited resources are also growing up in communities that have higher crime rates, making it pivotal for them to have positive outlets—like basketball. Cairo faces many obstacles, including population decline, housing disparity, poverty, and lack of government funding. In "Don’t Count Them Out: The Impact of Basketball on the Youth of Cairo, Illinois," Southern Illinois University Reporting Fellow Simeon Hardley follows two young players as they prepare for graduation and a coach hoping to turn the team’s season around.

This message first appeared in the January 1, 2025, edition of the Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium weekly newsletter. Subscribe today.
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