Marquita Smith of the University of Mississippi wins 2022 Bingham Fellowship Award
Marquita Smith, Ed.D., assistant dean for graduate programs at the University of Mississippi, is the 2022 recipient of the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship, awarded by the News Leaders Association.
The $1,000 award is given in recognition of an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage students of color in the field of journalism. Smith’s achievements will be recognized at next year’s News Leaders Association Awards Ceremony.
NLA provides support and training that empowers news leaders and emerging news leaders to build diverse, sustainable newsrooms that use fact-based information to inform and engage the communities they reflect and serve.
The Bingham Fellowship selection committee was particularly impressed by Smith's career-long commitment to diversity from her days at Knight Ridder, McClatchy and Gannett to those in academia.
When she was a city editor at the Virginian Pilot in Norfolk, Va., her colleague Denise Bridges said, Smith was "active in directing students to job fairs – even if she’s had to put them in the car and take them herself. She’s volunteered for numerous workshops, seminars and panels advising students on how to get their first jobs or apply for internships. She has been part of the 'resume doctor' team at several job fairs. She has organized the student scholarship program for the local NABJ chapter (where she also served as president for two years), and she has worked on the student publication staff at the NABJ convention. She’s also been a mentor to several summer interns, helping them polish their work for showcasing in the newspaper." Among other activities, she was adviser to the Spartan Echo, campus newspaper at Norfolk State University.
Dorothy Bland, Ph.D., professor at the University of North Texas Mayborn School of Journalism, told our committee that at John Brown University and then at Ole Miss, Smith taught more than 1,000 students. Now she manages two graduate programs and supports 20 virtual students employed by Ethiopian Airlines who are engaged in distance learning on four continents.
“I am truly humbled by and appreciative of this recognition," Smith said. "Helping students of color thrive in journalism, bringing their unique perspectives and talents to media organizations, is my Why. The industry desperately needs their contributions, and I am honored to play even the smallest role to elevate those voices.”
Denise L. Berkhalter, national director of communications for Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship said, "It’s no surprise to anyone who knows Dr. Marquita Smith that she would be chosen for such an honor. She is a journalism aficionado who has liberally shared her expertise with young journalists in newsrooms and classrooms for decades. This is a woman of color who recognizes the imperative to pass along to young minority journalists the baton that barrier busting trailblazers passed to her.”
Mary Irby-Jones, Midwest regional editor for the USA Today Network and executive editor of the Courier Journal in Louisville, Ky., added, "Dr. Marquita Smith has been a passionate and diligent advocate for minority journalists, especially women, her entire professional career. I have seen firsthand her commitment to the growth and development of her students and other journalists that she has mentored in and outside of the academic community.”
The News Leaders Association is proud to award Assistant Dean Smith with this year’s Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship Award, and looks forward to seeing how she continues to encourage students of color to grow and develop in the field of journalism.
The NLA Awards are among the most prestigious in journalism and continue the long traditions of the previous ASNE and APME Awards. ASNE and APME began awarding the fellowship in 2016, after a merger with the Association of Opinion Journalists (AOJ).