Longtime Education Week Executive Editor Gregory M. Chronister is retiring this week, and publisher Editorial Projects in Education Inc. has announced a journalism fellowship in his honor.
The Education Week Gregory M. Chronister Journalism Fellowship will be awarded annually to support a journalist pursuing a reporting project on an issue in pre-K-12 education.
The fellowship will be open to early-career, mid-career, and veteran journalists. The recipient will be expected to continue his or her regular employment, but will receive financial support of as much as $10,000 for “a deeply reported investigative or enterprise package or series of stories spotlighting a pre-K-12 topic,” according to EPE.
The fellow may examine an issue from a national perspective or from a local or state perspective, as long as the topic has broader implications for American education, EPE says. Projects with an international focus are also eligible if they can point clearly to implications or lessons for the United States. The fellow will be expected to use a combination of interviews, site visits, background briefings, databases and academic literature, or original data reporting to produce an investigative or enterprise package or series of stories that spotlights a pre-K-12 topic.
The package or series emerging from the inaugural recipient will be published during Education Week‘s 2018-19 publishing cycle.
The online application deadline is Nov. 15, 2017. The winning fellow will be announced the week of Jan. 15, 2018.
Chronister announced in February his plans to retire after nearly 32 years at Education Week, including as executive editor for the last 11 years, and as managing editor, associate editor, and commentary editor for 21 years before that.
“Greg was known for his commitment to producing balanced, thorough, high-quality reporting and for his keen eye on journalistic detail and big-picture context,” EPE said in announcing the fellowship.
In June, EPE announced that Scott Montgomery, the managing editor of audience and partnerships at NPR, would take on the new position of editor-in-chief and chief content officer of Education Week and of EPE. Montgomery began his new job on July 10.
Chronister’s last day on the job is Friday, Aug. 4. The fellowship was first announced to EPE employees and alumni at a retirement party for him on June 20.
“It was a wonderful surprise farewell gift to me from my colleagues at EPE,” Chronister said in an interview. “I’m very touched and honored to have my name associated with something that sounds like a really good way of encouraging good education journalism.”