Director, 1974-2001
Asia Fellowships Program
From the Twentieth to the Twenty-first Century: The Asia Fellowships Program for Journalists at the University of Hawaiʻi
Mission and History
A fellowships program for mid-career journalists was established at the University of Hawaiʻi in 1974 so that the profession of journalism broaden and deepen its understanding of Asian civilizations and affairs. It was none too soon, as it was already thirty-plus years after Pearl Harbor and twenty years after the Korean War. Vietnam was still raging and Nixon had just been to China. The fellowships program began with the view that Asia’s significance in world affairs would grow with the twenty-first century. This has continued to the present, many years beyond the close of the program in 2001. The waves of economic crises are, at least and as well, crises in cultural understanding East and West. Graduates of the program can be found on many major US newspapers and virtually every US news bureau in East Asia. There are 160 alumni. The fellowships were first funded by the Gannett Foundation and in 1991 became The Freedom Forum Asia Fellowships. From Fall 1999 until 2001, the program was known as The Asia Fellowships Program for Journalists at the University of Hawaiʻi.
The Setting
The considerable resources (over three hundred faculty and courses in the humanities and social sciences with Asian specialization) at the University of Hawaiʻi, were made available to journalists in the program. Then, too, Hawaiʻi as a modern meeting place of many cultures affords a special milieu for both academic and cultural enrichment. Since statehood, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that Hawaiʻi is unusually suited to exchanges East and West, whether they are dialogues in civilizations or conferences in diplomacy.
The Program
The program engaged the journalists in an academic year’s study of an Asian language and an individually planned course of study, including a field study. In addition, a weekly colloquium featured faculty and other resource persons who make Honolulu an entrepôt of national and international ideas and interests. The fellowships program also underwrote memberships in such organizations as the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Pacific and Asian Affairs Council and the Japan-America Society. Admission was based on a fundamental admissibility for graduate study, with a certificate awarded upon satisfactory completion of at least 18 credits over the year. The experience of studying an Asian language was indispensable to opening the student to new worlds of cultural and professional advancement. David Jackson of CBS has stated that, because he knew “two more Chinese words than the nearest competitor (a 100% advantage),” he gained the CBS assignment in Beijing shortly after his fellowship year. Kendall Wills, formerly of the New York Times, AP, Tokyo/Knight-Ridder, and Thomson Reuters Asia/China had a similar commitment to language study.
In the mid-1980s, a new feature of the program was introduced by which a journalist each from Japan and China were included through nomination by the Press Institute of Japan and China’s Xinhua and China Daily in alternation. The condition for this inclusion was that these Asian journalists were to study their own countries and societies alongside the Americans. This measure had a salutary effect upon not only the perspectives of the journalists involved, but also on the texture of the learning process of the Americans. Moreover, it led to fruitful and enduring professional associations. Also since the mid-1980s, increasing numbers of Asian-American journalists had applied successfully to the program. This last tendency not only resonates with concerns for diversity at home, but also demonstrates the vital importance of the international aspects of this diversity.
Over the twenty-six years, the program had distinguished itself as the first and only program on Asia in the country, centered not on journalism education but on academic study for journalists. For this reason, the director of the program had always been a professor of the humanities or the social sciences dealing with Asia. Among the fellows, the program was known as the “Asia Niemans.”
Shortly after the end of the Asia Fellowships Program for Journalists, the UH Journalism Department (now the School of Communications) started a new program designed to train journalists from China — the Parvin Fellowship Program in Journalism Studies. Over 170 Chinese journalists, mainly from China Daily and Xinhua News Agency, have gone through the program.
For over a quarter century through the Asia Fellowships Program for Journalists, the University of Hawaiʻi demonstrated devotion to journalism, education, and the humanities through a commitment of faculty, curriculum, and venue to the idea of affecting a change in the professional lives of journalists in regards to the Asia world area, a major international focus for the twenty-first century.
Fellows
1975-1991 – Gannett Fellows
1991-1999 – Freedom Forum Fellows
1999-2001 – UH Asia Fellows
With affiliations at appointment.
1975-1976
Fred Bales
Louisville Courier-Journal
Victor Laniauskas
United Press Journal
Philip McCombs
Washington Post
1976-1977
Pamela G. Hollie
Wall Street Journal
David V. Polhemus
Today newspaper, Cocoa, Florida
Norman K. Thorpe
Freelance writer, Asia
Ashley Wright
South China Morning Post
1977-1978
Robert L. Cutts
Pacific Stars & Stripes; Tokyo Weekender
Robert W. Hollis
San Francisco Examiner
Craig Wyatt
Rockford Newspapers, Inc., Illinois
Paul V. Zach
St. Petersburg Evening Independent, Florida
1978-1979
Richard Liefer
Des Moines Register and Tribune
John A. MacDonald
Louisville Courier-Journal
George Steele
Charleston Gazette
Susan Yim
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
1979-1980
Ellen Dyer-Thornton
The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Massachussetts
George T. Foster
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Melanie Kirkpatrick
Courier Express, Buffalo, New York
Mike Revzin
Kansas City Times
James Schiffman
United Press International, Wyoming
Terry Williamson
Evening News, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
1980-1981
John G. Anderson
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
W. Steven Jones
Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee
Virgil Larson
Forum, Fargo, North Dakota
Marguerite J. Moritz
WMAQ-TV/NBC, Chicago
Loretta B. Scott
Sun-Tattler, Hollywood, Florida
Mike Sheridan
Hartford Courant
1981-1982
Ronald Ishoy
Herald, Miami, Florida
Thomas Koch
The Province, Vancouver, B.C.
Susan Manuel
Reno Evening Gazettee and Nevada State Journal
Kevinne A. Moran
Rochester Times-Union
Raul Ramirez
Oakland Tribune
David Schweisberg
United Press International, Detroit
1982-1983
Ilene Aleshire
Riverside Press-Enterprise, California
Joseph Copeland
Everett Herald, Washington
David Fraser
Bergen Evening Record, Hackensack, New Jersey
David Logan
Toronto Globe and Mail
Kenneth Szymkowiak
Miami News
Katherine G. Titchen
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
1983-1984
Marcie Carroll
San Francisco Chronicle
Joan Connell
Bellingham Herald, Washington
Ernest V. Murphy
San Jose Mercury
John Schidlovsky
Baltimore Sun
John M. Simpson
Pacific Daily News, Guam
Joseph M. Winski
Crain Communications, Chicago
1984-1985
James Bross
Norman Transcript, Oklahoma
M. Linda Dragas
Voice of America and NBC television, New York City
Mary Blake Green
San Francisco Chronicle
Evelyn Iritani
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Elizabeth Sullivan
Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio
Sheila Tefft
Chicago Tribune
1985-1986
Marilyn Greene
Ithaca Journal, New York
Elizabeth Hughes
San Francisco Examiner
Dean Katz
The Seattle Times
Patricia Tummons
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Christopher A. Vaughn
Miami Herald
Deborah Zabarenko
Associated Press, New York City
1986-1987
Ben Barber
USA TODAY, Miami
Robert T. Benjamin
Baltimore Sun
Elizabeth Graeme Browning
Chicago Sun-Times
Janice Fuhrman
United Press International, Washington, D.C.
John E. Gittelsohn
Burlington Free Press, Vermont
Vicki Sanders
Miami Herald
1987-1988
Sarah Lewis Bachman
Everett Herald, Washington
Sally Ann Gelston
Fort Lauderdale News and Sun Sentinel, West Palm Beach, Florida
Gary E. Swan
San Francisco Chronicle
Judith Anne Telfer
Monterery Peninsula Herald
Gene Marcus Walton
Impact/Albuquerque Journal
1988-1989
Laura J. King
Associated Press, Washington, D.C.
Ann LoLordo
Baltimore Sun
Sylvia Nogaki
Seattle Times
William R. Raftery
Philadelphia Inquirer
David Gregory Victor
Bridgewater Courier News, New Jersey
Kendall J. Wills
New York Times
1989-1990
Peter John Engardio
Business Week, Miami
Kenneth Scott McLaughlin
San Jose Mercury
David Graham Vesey
United Press International, Washington, D.C.
Michael Zachary Weiss
Dallas Morning News
Ray Wong
Tennessean, Nashville
Laurence Leavitt Zuckerman
Time
1990-1991
Kenneth D. Barry
Reuters, Washington, D.C.
Scott K. Brown
Time Magazine, Los Angeles
Yoshiko Hayashi
Asahi Shimbun
Leslie M. Henderson
Knoxville Journal
Andrea Louie
Akron Beacon Journal
Brian Eliot Sullam
Baltimore Sun
1991-1992
Mark D. Avery
Associated Press, Beijing
Stephen T. Magagnini
Sacramento Bee
Foon Rhee
The Charlotte Observer
Cynthia 'Ceci' Rodgers
CNN, Washington, D.C.
Gary Silverman
United Press International
John Whitesides
Hartford Courant
1992-1993
James V. Bartimo
Wall Street Journal, Dallas
John R. Engen
Associated Press, Caracas, Venezuela
Martin C. Evans
Baltimore Sun
Sara Holley Gilbert
Oregonian, Portland
Hirokazu Igarashi
Yomiuri Shimbun
Holly C. Quan
Public Radio KQED-FM, San Francisco
Judy Tachibana
Sacramento Bee
1993-1994
Calvin T. Collie
Tampa Tribune
Thomas J. Curry
Time Magazine
Harvey J. Dickson
Boston Herald
Michael G. Gray
Image Magazine/San Francisco Examiner
Margaret E. Grodinsky
Valley New, Vermont
Sayuri Saito
Yomiuri Shimbun
Wendy A. White
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
1994-1995
Yoichi Amari
Sports Nippon
Ray Formanek, Jr.
Associated Press, Boston
Karyn Houston
Modesto Bee
Richard Jones
Honolulu Advertiser
Kris Kodrich
Wausau Daily Herald
Michael C. Lindblom
Daily News Longview
1995-1996
Kevin L. Carter
Philadelphia Inquirer
Maria S. Fisher
Associated Press, St. Louis
Himanee Gupta
Seattle Times
KASUGA Takayuki
Manichi Shimbun
Barbara Koh
San Jose Mercury News
Susan C. Kreifels
Pacific Stars and Stripes
Keiko Ohnuma
Oakland Tribune
1996-1997
AOKI Nobuyuki
Sankei Press
Mark Barron
St. Petersburg Times
Kayne Beasley
The Tennessean
Vindu Goel
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Vikram Jolly
Orange County Register
Jeffrey McCulley
Daily Yomiuri
Kelli Trifonovitch
Asia Now and Asia Online
1997-1998
Yasmin Anwar
Oakland Tribune
Linda Chong
United Press International, Hong Kong
Nobuo Fukuda
Asahi Shimbun Jakarta
Heather Greenfield
Associated Press Radio, Washington, D.C.
Carolyn Robinson
Cable News Hong Kong
Teresa Tamura
Seattle Times
1998-1999
Hannah Bloch
Time, Pakistan Bureau Chief
Mei-Ling Hopgood
St. Louis Post Dispatch
Michiko Sato (Aimoto)
Nishinippon Shimbun
Jim Wolf
Reuters, Washington, D.C.
Alan Yonan
Dow Jones News Service
Lesley Yonan
News Hour with Jim Lehrer
1999-2000
Bailey Barash
CNN Science News
Mike Leidemann
Honolulu Advertiser
Margie Mason
Florida Times-Union
Kitty McKinsey
Radio Free Europe
Glenn Scott
Pacific Stars and Stripes
2000-2001
John Needham
Los Angeles Times
James F. Paradise
Japan Times
Eriberto 'B.J.' Reyes
Associated Press, New York
Charles Rice
Associated Press Radio, Washington, D.C.
