EPA announces 2015 scholarship winner

Tabor College junior Jared Janzen was announced as the winner of the annual EPA scholarship during the EPA convention held in Westminster, Colorado, in early April. Janzen, a native of Newton, Kansas, will receive a $2,000 scholarship toward his senior year at Tabor.

Majoring in Communications and English, Janzen has a GPA of 3.965. He is the current editor of the Tabor View, the school newspaper. He is also writing and reporting as an intern for the Christian Leader, the national magazine of the Mennonite Brethren Church.

“Over the past year, the newspaper has improved in quality news coverage and media writing under Jared’s leadership,” said Aleen Ratzlaff, his academic adviser. “Jared has demonstrated an understanding for the purpose and effects of communicating through print media.”

In his essay about journalism, Janzen believes that media convergence is the most significant factor affecting journalism.

“Convergence is changing the way readers interact with the text,” writes Janzen. “Rather than focusing on reading a long article in its entirety, readers are more likely to browse throughout multiple articles, only reading bits and pieces of each. Reporters must consider this when they decide how to most effectively present their information.”

Janzen is planning for a career in journalism, initially as a reporter for a community newspaper or Christian publication, and later as an editor or to combine journalism with overseas missions work.

Tabor College is a Mennonite Brethren college located in Hillsboro, Kansas.

The judges for the scholarship contest were Sandra Glahn, editor-in-chief of Kindred Spirit, Robert Johnson, editor-in-chief of Horizons, and Dean Nelson, journalism professor at Point Loma Nazarene College.