Franklin College Pulliam School Of Journalism Receives $20,000 Grant From Ball Brothers Foundation

Release date: June 22, 2010

The Franklin College Pulliam School of Journalism (PSJ) was recently selected as a winner of the 2010 Ball Brothers Foundation Venture Fund competition, a competitive grant established by the Ball Brothers Foundation (Muncie, Indiana) and administered by the Independent Colleges of Indiana (ICI). The $20,000 award will help the college establish the Indianapolis News Bureau near the Indiana Statehouse.

The Ball Venture Fund provides seed money, through a competitive proposal process, to selected ICI member institutions to begin innovative programs. Twenty-nine proposals were submitted by ICI colleges for consideration this year. Franklin College, for the first time in the foundation's history, was selected for a grant in consecutive years.

The grant will be used to expand an existing January Winter Term class into a permanent news bureau. Students, including writers, photographers and videographers, will report on committee meetings, floor schedules, press conferences of legislative leaders and other parts of Indiana state government and politics. The first of its kind in Indiana, the bureau will provide journalism students with political reporting experience and news outlets with the information their readers want.

"We really are excited about this, because it is one of those rare situations in which everyone wins," said John Krull, director of the college's journalism school. "Our students win because they get great experience. News outlets in the state win because they get expanded coverage. And the citizens of the state win because they get a bigger and better window on the workings of their government."

Brian Howey, a leading political analyst and commentator on Indiana public policy and politics, will supervise the students working at the bureau.

Howey served as assignment editor for the journalism students this past Winter Term as they covered the activity at the Indiana Statehouse. While this was the fifth year the college organized a Winter Term class covering the Indiana legislature, it was the first year Howey participated with the college in the program.

Covering the Indiana legislature is what Howey knows best. In 1994, he launched Howey Politics Indiana, a newsletter covering local, state and federal politics in Indiana. He also reaches about 250,000 readers through a weekly newspaper column appearing in 25 Indiana publications.

The Ball Venture Fund was created in 1999 to enable the Ball Brothers Foundation to take an active role in encouraging and supporting creative efforts at Indiana's independent colleges and universities.

Independent Colleges of Indiana, Inc. (ICI) is a nonprofit corporation that represents the state's 31 nonprofit, accredited, undergraduate degree-granting institutions of higher education. ICI member institutions enroll more than 83,000 students (approximately 23 percent of all students statewide) and annually produce 31 percent of all bachelor's degrees in Indiana. For more information: www.icindiana.org.

Founded 175 years ago in 1834, Franklin College is a residential four-year undergraduate liberal arts institution with a scenic, wooded campus located 20 minutes south of downtown Indianapolis. The college prepares men and women for significant careers through the liberal arts, offering its 1,047 students 36 majors, including biology, business, education and journalism. In 1842, the college began admitting women, becoming the first coeducational institution in Indiana and the seventh in the nation. Franklin College maintains a voluntary association with the American Baptist Churches USA.