Lauren Davidson with Birmingham News design specialist Rick Frennea, Davidson’s supervisor when she was an intern at that newspaper.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Lauren Davidson, University of Alabama senior from Madison and editor of The Crimson White student newspaper, will receive a W.H. Metz Newspaper Management Scholarship for 2004-05.

This award of $2,500 is the top student award given annually by the Alabama Press Association Journalism Foundation. It is named for the late W.H. Metz, who served as president of the Birmingham Post-Herald for many years and was president of the APA in 1968. The Metz scholarship has been awarded for the past 15 years to students who are planning a career in newspaper management.

“We are extremely proud of Ms. Davidson’s record as a student and as an aspiring journalist,” said Dr. Ed Mullins, chairman of the UA journalism department. “She has excelled in all phases of her college experience. She is the model we hold up for all journalism majors. She is a President’s List Scholar, has interned at a small paper, The Madison Record, with a large paper, The Birmingham News, and will intern this summer on the design desk at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the South’s largest newspaper, returning to Tuscaloosa each weekend to oversee production of the summer Crimson White. She is also past president of the Society of News Design, an active student organization.”

Davidson said her goal for the CW, UA’s student paper that publishes four times a week, has an active Web site, and publishes several niche publications annually, is to help it continue to be one of the nation’s leading campus newspapers, with specific attention on improving writing, editing, design, photography and staff and operations management.

“We will meet our deadlines,” Davidson told the staff members in one of their first meetings.

Mullins said, “With many top staffers returning from last year and Davidson in charge, we expect a very good year at the CW. She has selected one of the strongest staffs in recent years.”

The APA Journalism Foundation is a nonprofit educational foundation that supports journalism education in Alabama’s colleges. Over the past 35 years, the foundation has awarded the UA journalism department, its faculty and students more than $350,000 in support of high school outreach, special publication projects, scholastic and professional workshops, field trips, visitor programs, internships and other activities.

The College of Communication & Information Sciences is among the largest and most prestigious communication colleges in the nation. C&IS has graduated more than 12,000 students and consistently is ranked among the top 10 in number of doctoral degrees awarded and in many of its research programs. C&IS graduates have won four of the six Pulitzer Prizes awarded to University of Alabama alumni, and the forensics and debate squad, housed within the College, has garnered 14 national championships.