October 24, 1994

5 Scripps Fellows will study environment, journalism

By Bernie DeGroat
News and Information Services

Five journalists have been named 1994–95 Ted Scripps Environmental Journalism Fellows at the U-M. They began a year of study of environmental science and policy and journalism practice in September.

The fellows are:

  • Janina de Guzman, a staff writer for the Japan Times. A Princeton graduate in English, she has traveled extensively in the Pacific and Russia, writing on conservation issues and other topics.

  • Richard Kleiman, who followed a stint as a suburban reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer for two years in the Peace Corps in Botswana, is enrolled in a master’s program at the School of Natural Resources and Environment.

  • Edward (Ned) Martel, a Washington, D.C.-based free-lance writer who has contributed extensively to Outside and Harper’s magazines. He also has worked as a reporter in Naples, Fla., and at States News Service in Washington, D.C.

  • Richard Mertens, environment reporter for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor. For the past several months, he has traveled in Croatia and Bosnia, helping a daily newspaper in Sarajevo continue to publish during the siege.

  • Jenny Weil, a staffer at the Prince Georges Journal in suburban Washington, D.C. A graduate of the University of Maryland, she has been a general assignment and political and government reporter.

    The U-M program is built around a core seminar that examines case studies of local, national and global environmental problems analyzed through a variety of relevant disciplines, says Adjunct Professor of Communication Jonathan Friendly, director of the fellowship program.

    In addition, the fellows attend regular classes and receive professional training in writing and computer-assisted reporting.

    Selected by faculty from the School of Natural Resources and Environment and the Department of Communication, the fellows receive a $21,000 stipend to cover tuition and living expenses during their two terms of study.

    The fellowship program was created two years ago with a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation and matching funds from LS&A and the School of Natural Resources and Environment.

    The foundation grant was made possible by a gift from Nathan and Cindy Scripps Leising. Mrs. Leising, who serves on the program’s advisory board, is the daughter of the late Ted Scripps for whom the fellowships are named.

    “This year, the Leisings increased their support to raise the stipend for the fellows,” Friendly says. “I am very grateful for their vote of confidence in what we’re doing.”

    Board members also include: David Hales, director of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago; Stuart Hart, director of the Program in Corporate Environmental Management; Randy Lee Loftis of the Dallas Morning News; Paul McAuliffe, executive editor of the Evansville (Ind.) Courier; Emily Smith, science editor of Business Week magazine; and Stephen Viederman, executive director of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation in New York City.

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