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The Moody-Ramirez Belden Endowed Scholarship for Diversity in Journalism December 28, 2021

Posted by Mia Moody-Ramirez in : Uncategorized , trackback

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The Moody-Ramirez Belden Endowed Scholarship for Diversity in Journalism was established in 2021 by Dr. Mia N. Moody-Ramirez and Tom Belden.

This scholarship is a collaborative effort between Tom Belden and Janice Miller, Ella Prichard and Mia Moody-Ramirez that they began discussing with Bob Darden in the fall of 2020. They wanted to create a scholarship for journalism students similar to Baylor’s Trailblazer Scholars Program, a scholarship  designed to  recognize  the  importance  of  fostering  diversity  and  mutual  respect  at Baylor University.

Moody-Ramirez was able to provide funds for the scholarship after being awarded the Cornelia Marschall Smith  Professor of the Year Award, which  recognizes a Baylor faculty member who makes  a  superlative  contribution  to  the  learning  environment  at  Baylor  through  teaching, research and service. The award comes with a $20,000 prize.

They are excited to be able to award the scholarship to students who are members of the Baylor  National  Association  of  Black  Journalists  (NABJ),  which  was  reinstated  in  2003  with Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D., serving as the adviser.

Founded by 44 men and women on Dec. 12, 1975, in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization of journalists  of  color  in  the  world.  Many  of  NABJ’s  3,300  members  also  belong  to  one  of  the professional and student chapters that serve Black journalists.

Mia  Moody-Ramirez,  Ph.D.,  is  a  Professor  and  Chair  of  the  Baylor  University  Department  of Journalism, Public Relations and New Media. She joined Baylor in 2001 and has maintained an active research portfolio in addition to her teaching and leadership roles. Her research emphasizes media framing of people of color, women and political candidates, the pros and cons of social media in political campaigns and how historical stereotypes are found in social media platforms.

The author or co-author of four books, Dr. Moody-Ramirez has also been widely published in a variety  of  academic  and  industry  journals.  She  was  honored  with  the  Outstanding  Woman  in Journalism award by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and received the organization’s Lionel Barrow Jr. Award for Distinguished Achievement in Diversity Research and Education. She is also a 2019 Fellow in the AEJMC Institute for Diverse Leadership.

Mia’s husband Augustine is a material’s handler at Packless Industries and disc jockey. She is the proud mother of Heidi, Timothy, and William.

Tom Belden worked as a professional journalist for more than 40 years and now devotes much of his time to supporting other journalists working for nonprofit and underfunded commercial news” “organizations. Tom graduated from Baylor in 1970 with a B.A. majoring in journalism and history. He received an M.S. in 1971 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He worked  as  a  reporter  and  editor  for  four  years  for  United  Press  International  in  six  bureaus, including managing space flight coverage from Cape Canaveral, Fla., for a year. He worked for Belden Associates in Dallas for two years doing market research for newspapers. He returned to reporting  for  the  Dallas  Morning  News  from  1977  to  1979  before  moving  to  The  Philadelphia Inquirer. Over the next 31 years, he wrote more than 4,000 articles for The Inquirer about a range of topics, devoting the majority to covering airlines, airports, aircraft, railroads, hospitality and tourism. From 1988 to 2010 he wrote a business travel column for The Inquirer and the Knight-Ridder/Tribune  News  Service.  He  shared  regional  and  national  awards  for  his  reporting  on Philadelphia airline service.

Tom’s wife, Janice A. Miller, is a retired college financial aid administrator who worked for more than three decades at Southern Methodist University, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Trinity University in San Antonio.

This  endowed  scholarship  fund  provides  assistance  to  deserving  students  attending  Baylor University,  Waco,  Texas,  with  preference  given  to  students  who  are  pursuing  a  degree  in  the Department  of  Journalism,  Public  Relations  and  New  Media,  and  who  are  members  of  the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).

 

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