The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication received $100,000 in new scholarship funds last week, earmarked to support photojournalism and minority students.
Howard Buffett, who spoke on campus last week, and Wal-Mart each gave $50,000. Wal-Mart also donated the same amount to nine other journalism schools across the country, including those at Columbia University and Northwestern University.
"When [students] get into different parts of the world, I think the way that journalists are able to operate would be a real eye-opener," Buffett said.
Buffett said the scholarship was intended to foster student interest in the problems people face outside of North America and encourage them to see the world from a different perspective.
The Buffett photojournalism scholarship would grant five students $10,000 each to help them with an internship abroad to document how people live in other parts of the world, much as Buffett does.
Buffett said he came to ASU with the check in hand but did not know initially whether he would give the school the money. After spending five days touring the region with members of the ASU Foundation, he felt the gift was well deserved.
As part of his visit to ASU, Buffett went to the Navajo reservation and parts of Mexico with members of the ASU Foundation to get a better sense of issues affecting the Southwest, such as immigration.
"It was a great educational experience for me," Buffett said.
"We're delighted that [Buffett] focused on photojournalism students," said Steve Doig, interim director of the journalism school. "We see it as an opportunity to build on our own photojournalism program."
The journalism school offers only a few photojournalism classes and does not offer a degree in the subject.
The Wal-Mart scholarship was intended to help increase the number of minority students studying journalism around the country.
The minority population in the Cronkite school matches that of ASU at 21 percent, but it is still lower than the state minority percentage, which is 36 percent.
"While I think we are doing a good job of attracting minority students, this certainly will help us bring them in," Doig said.
"What, in reality, will happen is that it will allow us to give good support to some of the minority students we already have," he said.
The Wal-Mart scholarship would give a $2,500 annual award to juniors and seniors, and it would be renewable for the following year. Criteria for receiving the award have not yet been determined.
ASU was selected in part because of its strong journalism program and because it has a large minority population, said Linda Blakley, spokeswoman for Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart believes there are not enough minority journalists and that their absence from newsrooms affects the coverage newspapers can provide, Blakley said.
"We believe journalists are shaped by their culture," Blakley said.
Reach the reporter at elias.arnold@asu.edu.
