2010 McCormick Scholarship Winners

Cambrey Thomas Zohreen Adamjee

Zohreen Adamjee and Cambrey Thomas have won McCormick Scholarships for the 2010-2011 school year at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, according to Lenore Skenazy, president of the Anne O'Hare McCormick Memorial Fund, Inc., a charity affiliated with the Newswomen's Club of New York. The scholarships total $12,000. 

"We look for exceptional writing talent, of course, but we also prize the desire to dig for the truth and tell stories that could change the world," Skenazy said. 

Zohreen Adamjee was awarded a $6,000 McCormick Scholarship honoring Lauren Terrazzano, the late Newsday reporter and columnist. Terrazzano died in May 2007 at age 39 of lung cancer. She won a posthumous Front Page Award in 2007 for her Newsday column, "Life with Cancer."

Cambrey Noelle Thomas was awarded a $6,000 McCormick Scholarship known as the Joan O'Sullivan Scholarship Award. This is the second O'Sullivan Award given since the scholarship was created to honor the McCormick Fund's long-time president, Joan O'Sullivan, who died in September 2008. O'Sullivan, who was an award-winning columnist for King Features Syndicate before she retired, was a past president and board member of the Newswomen's Club of New York.

This year's winners were selected from among 48 applicants, the most in a McCormick Scholarship competition in recent memory.  

A News Addict 

In her winning McCormick entry, Adamjee wrote about growing up in Los Angeles "with newly immigrated Pakistani parents" and pursuing the L.A. dream of working in the entertainment industry. Then her cousin was kidnapped by the Taliban -- and suddenly she became addicted to the news. From that grew her desire to "cover the news," she wrote.

Fluent in Urdu and Gujarati, Adamjee  also is studying Arabic again. She hopes to someday cover the Middle East. 

Known as "Zo," Adamjee blogs about technology for The Los Angeles Times. She created an audio series of "Behind the Scenes" interviews with LA Times reporters on how they landed a specific story. In 2006, she earned a B.A. degree in mass communications from UCLA. Adamjee plans to graduate from Columbia J-School in May 2011 with an M.S. degree in journalism, with a newspaper concentration.

A Survivor's Story 

Thomas, a former Detroit Free Press blogger, wrote her winning McCormick essay about surviving childhood cancer at ages 9 and 10 -- only to struggle with learning and memory problems -- as a seventh grader. Her brain was suffering the side effects of aggressive chemotherapy, which weren't that well known in 1998. In danger of being forced to repeat seventh grade, she got some tutoring in math and went on to the eighth grade. 

In high school, Thomas refused to accept an ACT score of 17 as the best she could do. Her research showed that "statistically, low-income female students of color scored the lowest," she wrote, adding: "I was furious and decided my friends and I would not become statistics," She found a free prep program and organized a study group with her friends, writing: "We took the test again and I scored a 25." 

Thomas spent almost three months in New York in early 2009 while working as a web intern for Self magazine. She did another internship with Detroit Public Radio. Thomas earned a B.S. degree in journalism and animate arts at Northwestern University's Medill School in May 2009. The summer after graduation, she taught journalism to teens on the South Side of Chicago. Ultimately, she wants to be a "story teller" with an eye toward becoming an editor later in her career. At Columbia J-School, Thomas will focus on digital media. She aims to graduate in May 2011 with an M.S. degree. 

Anne O'Hare McCormick Scholarship Fund

Anne O'Hare McCormickThe Anne O’Hare McCormick Memorial Fund, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt foundation, set up by Newswomen’s Club members Emma Bugbee, Martha Coman, Loretta King, Mary Margaret McBride and Kathleen McLaughlin to honor Anne O’Hare McCormick (The New York Times) after her death in1954. The purpose of the fund is to give scholarships to outstanding women students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Anne O’Hare McCormick gained prominence while reporting from Europe in the 1930s. She chronicled Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and interviewed many of the power brokers and leaders of that era. In 1937, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence. She served as a vice president of the Newswomen’s Club for several years, and she was the first woman to serve on The New York Times editorial board.

The McCormick Fund’s Joan O’Sullivan Scholarship was created in 2008 through a gift from Newswomen’sClub past President Rosalind Massow. Joan O’Sullivan served for many years as president of the McCormick Fund. She was a columnist and editor for King Features Syndicate, a past president of the Newswomen’s Club and long-time chairwomen of the Front Page Awards dinners.

The McCormick Fund has given more than $300,000 in scholarships. Among the major donors to the McCormick Fund are Thomson Reuters, the Newswomen’s Club of New York, and for many years, the New York Times Company Foundation.

Tax-deductible contributions can be sent to: Anne O’Hare McCormick Memorial Fund, Inc., The Newswomen’s Club of New York, 15 Gramercy  Park South, New York, N.Y. 10003, Attention Jan Paschal, Treasurer.

 

McCormick Fund's Board of Trustees:

President - Lenore  Skenazy is an author, a Front Page Award-winning columnist, an expert on modern parenting issues, the founder of the website -- www.freerangekids.com -- and an active member of the Twitterati. She is also a public speaker and recently used Skype to address an audience in Australia.

Vice President - Judith Crist is the Front Page Award-winning former film critic for the New York Herald-Tribune, "Today" Show and TV Guide; author of three books on film, including "The Private Eye, The Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl" and an adjunct professor in her 52nd year of teaching at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Secretary - Sylvia Carter writes the "a la Carter" column for Newsday. In 35 years on Newsday's staff, she was the first to write "Eats," reviews of down-to-earth restaurants. She also founded Kidsday, a section "for kids and by kids, mostly," which started a national trend. She is a past president of the Newswomen's Club.

Treasurer - Jan Paschal is a Reuters desk editor who specializes in Wall Street and market regulation. She also writes and blogs about fashion, celebrities and lifestyle trends.

Trustee - Gail Collins is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, a Columbia J-School adjunct professor and an author. In 2001, she became the first woman appointed editor of the Times editorial page. In 2007, she left that post to write her book, "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of Women from 1960 to the Present."

Trustee - Carolyn Purcell is an award-winning TV producer who has worked on both live and documentary programming. She has covered some of the nation's biggest legal stories for Court TV and Turner Broadcasting.

 

2010-2011 McCormick Scholarship Application. Click here for a Printer Friendly Version     

             Deadline: June 1, 2010…………………………………………..

Deadline for 2010 awards is passed.


APPLICANT'S PACKAGE SHOULD INCLUDE:

1. List of job-related experiences, with dates of employment. (This includes on-campus journalism jobs, summer jobs, freelance gigs, internships, and full-time jobs.)

2. Brief statement of financial resources, including need for tuition and living expenses during the academic year. Please list savings, other scholarships and any other financial resources you have in hand to finance your graduate work.

3. Two letters of recommendation that focus on your qualifications for the field of journalism.

4. An autobiographical essay mentioning family, educational background, journalistic experience and goals.

5. One or two examples of what you consider your best writing, including clippings of published work or copies of TV or radio scripts if available.

PLEASE TYPE OR PRINT CLEARLY:

Name: _____________________________________

Date of Birth: _______________________________

Citizenship: ________________________________

Permanent Address: _______________________________________________

City _________________ State ______________ Zip Code _______

E-mail Address: ______________________________________

Phone Number: _______________________________________

Temporary Address: __________________________________

______________________________________________________

I will be at this address until ____________________________

Business Phone: ______________________________________

Marital Status: _________________________________________

Children: ______________________________________________

Social Security No. _____________________________________

College Attended, Undergraduate Degree, Date of Graduation

________________________________________________________________________

Graduate School Attended, Advanced Degree, Date of Graduation

________________________________________________________________________

I will attend the Columbia University School of Journalism, beginning___________, and expect to graduate

in________________(year) with degree(s) in ________________.


PLEASE NOTE:

Applications must be mailed or delivered for receipt by June 1, 2010, to:
Anne O'Hare McCormick Memorial Fund , Inc., c/o The Newswomen's Club of New York  15 Gramercy Park South, 2nd Floor  New York, NY 10003
**IMPORTANT-Please mark envelope: ATTN.: SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION


ELIGIBILITY:
Women attending Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism who show evidence of talent and financial need.



Phone calls to the club, which is not staffed, cannot be answered. If you have a question, e-mail newswomensclub@verizon.net. In subject box, specify "McCormick Scholarship."