COLLEGE PARK (5/11/20) — The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication recently named Maurine Beasley, a Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism, the first winner of the division’s Senior Scholar Award.
The Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award, established this year, recognizes an individual for excellence in journalism history research who has at least a 15-year academic career and a record of division membership. Beasley will be honored with a plaque and $200 check.
“Maurine Beasley has created not only a strong record of historical scholarship but a legacy. Selected from a competitive field of nominations, she stands out as the clear choice to be the inaugural recipient of the Donald Shaw Senior Scholar Award,” the judges’ comments said. “She is a tireless scholar in pursuit of historical truth. More than that, she has helped produce multiple generations of scholars, both by inspiring them with her published work and by providing personal mentorship.”
Beasley, a former education editor of the Kansas City Star and former staff writer for The Washington Post, is a journalism historian who specializes in women’s portrayal and participation in journalism. Her particular focus is Washington women journalists including Eleanor Roosevelt, who considered herself a journalist, and the coverage of first ladies.
“I have been so fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from others and to help broaden the field of journalism/media history by embracing new faces, new concepts and new ideas,” Beasley said in a statement. “I know our discipline has the intellectual vigor to remain relevant in these stressful times because of the creativity, dedication and imagination of those who have entered it.”
Beasley has been an active member of AEJMC’s History Division throughout her career, serving as division head in 1988-89 and later serving as the national president of AEJMC.
The Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award is named in honor of the pioneering journalism theoretician, distinguished journalism historian and former head of the History Division, who taught for almost half of a century at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media.
For more information, contact:
Josh Land
joshland@umd.edu
301-405-1321