The Scripps Howard Foundation has awarded a three-year grant of $150,000 to the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder to continue hosting the Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment.
The institute, established in 2000, is a weeklong educational program for journalists who cover environmental issues. The next institute is scheduled for May 12-17.
"Scripps Howard Foundation has made it a priority to provide an ongoing educational forum for America's environmental journalists," said Judith G. Clabes, president and CEO of Scripps Howard Foundation. "Journalists play a vital role by helping us all have a clearer understanding and appreciation
for our precious environment."
"We are excited to be able to continue offering this outstanding opportunity to journalists who want to deepen their understanding of environmental issues," said Professor Tom Yulsman, who recently was appointed co-director of the Center for Environmental Journalism. "And we are exceedingly grateful that the Scripps Howard Foundation has extended the funding to allow us to offer the institute for another three years."
Yulsman, who has served as the center's deputy director for the past six years, has assumed primary responsibility for organizing the weeklong series of workshops, seminars, field trips and other events.
Attendance at the institute is limited to 25 journalists from around the nation. They are selected from among print, broadcast and Web-based media.
Participants take part in an intensive week of study designed to give them a window into some of today's most important environmental topics, including energy issues, drought, climate change, ecology, land management, environmental toxins and the environmental aspects of globalization.
The director of the forthcoming Institute on the Environment is Professor James White, an acclaimed climate scientist who heads the Environmental Studies Program at CU-Boulder. Other faculty who are scheduled to participate in this year's institute include Professor Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research; Professor Sharon Collinge, a biologist with the department of environmental, population and organismic biology; and Professor Jim Ruttenber, an epidemiologist at the CU School of Medicine.
The institute is scheduled to include field trips to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Rocky Mountain National Park. A special session will focus on environmental resources on the Internet that are useful for journalists.
The institute covers the costs of the journalists' instruction, field trips, lodging and most meals. For additional information about the program for last year's institute see the center's Web site at .
The Scripps Howard Foundation is dedicated to promoting excellence in journalism and is a leader in journalism education, scholarships, internships, literacy, minority recruitment and development and First Amendment causes.
Since 1997, the foundation also has provided an annual grant to the center for the Ted Scripps Fellowships in Environmental Journalism. Each year, five Scripps fellows spend two semesters at CU-Boulder studying environmental science, policy, law and journalism and working on individual research.
The Center for Environmental Journalism -- the first of its kind in the United States -- dates to 1992. The center is part of CU-Boulder's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, which offers undergraduate majors a broad education in the liberal arts. Graduate students may choose specialty areas, including environmental journalism.