VCU news

By Tom Gresham

RICHMOND, Va. (Sept. 4, 2008) – Virginia Commonwealth University graduate students Patrice Baltimore and Maria James each have been awarded the Inez Kaiser Award for Graduate Students of Color by the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Baltimore, originally of Philadelphia, and James, of Virginia Beach, will receive free one-year memberships in both the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and the association’s Public Relations Division, which presents the award. Baltimore and James are both pursuing a master’s degree in strategic public relations in the School of Mass Communications at VCU. They are graduates of Virginia Union University.

For the past decade, the Public Relations Division of AEJMC has worked to increase diversity in the division through the Inez Kaiser awards, which honor Kaiser, the first African-American woman to belong to the Public Relations Society of America and to head a public relations agency with national clients. The award encourages academic career aspirations and broadens diversity within the Public Relations Division of AEJMC.