Dorothy Estes Endowed Scholarship

The Dorothy Estes Scholarship is awarded to The Shorthorn newsroom staff member who demonstrates excellence, productivity, teamwork, a positive attitude and dependability. It’s considered the MVP award for the spring semester. Mrs. Estes served many years as Student Publications director. The Shorthorn under her leadership was known for reporting and writing, photography, layout and design, ad sales and incorporating the latest technology. It won every national and regional award given for college journalism, often more than once — she’s proudest of the SPJ Freedom of Information Award (1995) — and placed close to 600 students in the communications work force. Mrs. Estes provided the vision and the funding for in-house production and daily publication and established a recruiting system involving high schools and community colleges. She was always on call to mentor young advisers. She willed her students to succeed. She retired from UTA in 1996.

Eligibility
• The scholarship will be awarded to a current Shorthorn Newsroom staff member who holds a major editing, reporting, photography, production, graphics or design position (print or online).
• Applicants must have been on Shorthorn staff at least one long semester (fall or spring) prior to the current semester.
• Applicants must have a cumulative UTA GPA of 2.0 or higher. The committee will not consider any applicant with UTA cumulative GPA lower than 2.0 or any applicant who does not yet have a UTA GPA that reflects at least one long semester as a UTA student
prior to the current semester.
• All current Shorthorn staff members, including graduating seniors, who meet stated qualifications may apply.

To apply, submit the following to MavScholarShop:
• A letter explaining your three greatest contributions to The Shorthorn (with the emphasis on your contributions this semester), your career plans and how you’re using your work on The Shorthorn to prepare for that career, and why you’re applying for this award. The letter should be at least one full page but no more than two pages, single-spaced.
• Your resume, no longer than one page.
• Samples of your work published this semester in The Shorthorn. Work samples submitted with this application should be free of known errors. Work produced for other publications or other media will not be considered.

Specifically, your work samples should include:
Editors — a one-page statement (which may be part of the above letter) describing your three greatest contributions to The Shorthorn this semester, plus at least five samples from The Shorthorn from this semester reflecting work planned by you and executed by you and your staff.
Copy editors — three unedited stories and clips of those stories after you edited them, and three published headlines that you wrote. (If you include headlines that you wrote for stories that you did not edit, be sure to indicate that that clip is for the headline only.)
Page designers, illustrators — five pages you designed and/or your graphics/illustrations published this semester. (If you submit graphics or illustrations that you created, include the story or column that were published with each of them, for context.)
Reporters — clips of five of your stories published this semester, including at least two stories from your beat.
Photographers — clips of your published photos from five assignments this semester. Include cutlines with all photos. (A “wild art”/stand alone photo may be considered an assignment for the purposes of this application.) Up to two soundslides, gallaries/slideshows and videos may be submitted as clips. Include the url for any soundslide or video that you wish to submit as a clip along with a brief, written summary of the assignment. Remember that your images should tell a story.
Online editors and content producers — five things that you created. Include the url for each item. Include a note if needed explaining which part of the url you created if the work displayed from the url includes more than the piece you’re submitting with this application.

Samples of your work this semester in areas not mentioned above and/or not included as requirements of your position — columns, editorials, reviews, etc. — may be submitted with your application. Such items should be submitted in addition to — not in place of — the number of samples mentioned above for your position.

All work samples should be submitted as PDFs.

Basic requirements for all Student Publications scholarships and awards include the following:
• You must be in compliance with all requirements for working at The Shorthorn and in Student Publications.
• You must be in good academic standing with the university and be eligible to receive a scholarship.
• You must have held a staff position this semester that reflects the work being recognized in the scholarship or award.
• Priority consideration will be given to applicants who have been on staff the whole semester.
• You may apply for more than one scholarship or award, but no student may receive more than one Student Publications end-of-semester scholarship or award in any single semester.
• Selection committee members have the option of not awarding any scholarship or award if they conclude performance in that area has not met the level of accomplishment that these scholarships and awards are intended to recognize. Quality of work samples submitted with applications will be a major factor in deciding whether a scholarship or award will be awarded this semester.

A recipient will forfeit the full amount of any scholarship or award if:
• He or she fails to earn a minimum of 6 credit hours at UTA this semester unless the student completed a degree this semester and needed fewer than 6 credit hours to do so.
• He or she is not in good academic standing with the university after grades for this semester are posted.
• Students who have previously received a Roger C. Dycus Scholarship or Dorothy Estes Scholarship are ineligible to apply for the other in the same year.