Bill Walsh Scholarship

Applicants must be seeking degrees as enrolled college/university juniors, seniors, or graduate students at the time of the deadline (November 15).

Applications must be emailed by midnight on November 15. All entry materials must be in English.

The Bill Walsh Scholarship is awarded to an applicant who aspires to edit news and who demonstrates the talent and passion for language that Bill devoted his life to. Applicants for the other five scholarships should have a commitment to a career in the editing of written materials and demonstrate effectiveness in doing so.

By submitting a separate application for each, an entrant can seek both the Walsh and one of the other ACES scholarships, but can win only one.

To apply for the $3,500 Bill Walsh Scholarship, place the six pieces of information numbered below on a single document. Please title the document with (in this order) your last name, first name, and “BW.” Email it as an attachment to crudenalex@gmail.com. The six pieces are:

1. Your résumé, including (of course) the education portion.

2. The names, occupations and contact information of three people who are professionally or academically familiar with your editing and/or writing. 

3-6 Your responses to the following exercises. Note: We realize that you may decide to use AI tools such as ChatGPT. It is our belief that the technology is not to the point where it might actually help you — that in fact it might provide worse answers than your own. We already know what kind of responses AI produces in regard to these exercises. What matters in this scholarship competition is what you think. 

3. Assume the following paragraph is the beginning of a report on a news site in Texas. Which one of the three headlines below it would be the best one to use? Why?

University of Houston leaders have announced they would close the school's Diversity and Inclusion office and LGBTQ Resource Center in light of recent state legislation passed to erode diversity programs and services in Texas. Instead, UH is creating a Center for Student Advocacy and Community to comply with state law. The university's announcement came months before the state law is set to go into effect Jan. 1.

1. For UH students now: advocacy and community instead of diversity
2. University of Houston bows to new diversity restrictions
3. UH to close diversity office, LGBTQ resource center

4. You have just finished editing a crime news article that requires immediate posting. You have a feeling of uncertainty about three things in it:

1. On which day of the week the alleged crime occurred.
2. The spelling of the last name of the suspect.
3. The maximum possible sentence for commission of such a crime. Your boss is demanding you put the article online right away. Which one thing would you insist on checking before posting? Why that one?

5. On deadline, you are editing a summary of eight national news developments compiled by one of your colleagues. You notice that the central assertion of one of them is disinformation. You are certain of that. What do you do about it?

6. What is the most valuable attribute you feel capable of bringing to the editing of news?