Journalism students on the staff of The Daily Texan have an opportunity to receive a fellowship that will pay for foreign or domestic travel in exchange for preparing a written, photographic, video, or other work product about their travel, under newly revised guidelines for a 20-year-old endowment.
Guidelines for the Helen M. Powell Traveling Fellowship endowment have been revised by the University and the grantors to increase the likelihood that the fellowship will be awarded each year by the School of Journalism and Media (School). Another purpose of the revision was to ensure that, in any year when the fellowship is not awarded, the endowment will fund scholarships for journalism students on the paid staff of The Daily Texan.
The endowment was established in 2006 by 1972-73 Texan editor David Powell and his wife Vicki Weber, both of Tallahassee, Florida, in honor of Powell’s mother. Because the fellowship had been awarded sporadically in recent years, the guidelines were recently revised by Amy Gogolin, chief development officer of the Moody College of Communication; David Ryfe, the School’s director; and Powell.
“I am so grateful for Amy’s and David’s hard work in revising the fellowship’s guidelines so more students will have a chance to take advantage of this opportunity for reporting in this country and abroad,” Powell said. “They had great ideas for how to make the fellowship more accessible for journalism students and to benefit students working on the Texan.”
As of December 31, 2025, the endowment had a total market value of $150,013.08 with a projected payout for the 2025-2026 academic year of $6,446.24, according to the University. The endowment is managed by the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Company (UTIMCO) but is not part of the Permanent University Fund.
Under the new guidelines, the fellowship is to be awarded by the School’s scholarship committee to an undergraduate based on four criteria—(1) an applicant’s preliminary story idea for a journalism work product to be prepared after conclusion of the funded travel; (2) the applicant’s career goals; (3) current or prior service on the paid staff of The Daily Texan; and (4) demonstration of commitment to deliver an appropriate work product after the funded travel.
“The criteria include an applicant’s travel-related story ideas because that’s the way real newsrooms work,” said Powell, a retired lawyer and former Tallahassee bureau chief for the Associated Press. “Editors don’t fund a reporter’s travel without knowing what story the reporter expects to produce and agreeing that it’s worth the cost. Students need to learn how to sell story ideas to their editors.”
In addition to independent travel, the fellowship may now be used to pay for a journalism student’s participation in UT Study Aboard courses or journalism courses that include domestic or foreign travel.
If the scholarship committee determines that no application merits an award of the fellowship in a particular year, the available funds from the endowment “shall be used to provide scholarships to journalism students who are on the paid staff of the Daily Texan, based on recommendations of the editor and managing editor.”
Prior recipients have used the fellowship to pay for travel to: Colorado and Oregon to report on the legalization of recreational marijuana in those states; Ciudad Juarez to report on the disappearance of young women in the borderlands; Argentina to report on that country’s Arab and Muslim communities; Lebanon and Israel to study the Arabic language and report on relations between Islamic and Western cultures; Paraguay to produce a film on organic farming in rural areas; and Mozambique to report on AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.