Experiences of an American woman who was married to a Serb.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Serbian Journalists Urged to Apply for Stanford Fellowships: Live Free in CA for 9 Months

Stanford's Knight Foundation is sponsoring fellowships for journalists who want to go to Stanford University to do independent study for a year. They'll pay you $60,000 plus help with health insurance, moving costs, finding apartments, helping your spouse find something to do, etc. Although the program is open to journalists of any age from anywhere in the world, I believe that Serbian Journalists have a particular edge in winning a fellowship because these types of programs love "diversity" and the program's application guidelines say:

"We are particularly interested in people who can have a direct impact on the development of a free press and flow of information in their countries and, to that end, we encourage journalists from countries where the press is either under threat or still in the process of becoming an independent press. We also continue to seek and consider international journalists from countries with a more robust press, especially those who propose to focus their work here on innovation and entrepreneurship."

To my mind, Serbia has a very robust press but definitely Serbs could stand to learn A LOT about entrepreneurship!

The deadline for the application is Wed Dec 15th. You'll have to come up with an idea for a project you'd be working on .. perhaps something about mobile Internet and the press or ensuring voices for the many Vojvodina minorities in the press would go over well. My preference would be mobile Internet if I won a fellowship :-)

You'll have to get your samples translated to English for this - but don't worry about official stamps and stuff, an "unofficial" translation would do.

It's a great opportunity - Stanford is the Harvard of the west, and in an incredibly gorgeous area of California with lots of natural beauty, plus it's near San Francisco. Definitely my idea of a dream all-expenses-paid sabbatical.