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Kelly Proctor with Dr. Lee Becker. |
Grady Graduate Wins Fulbright Award To Study at Renmin University in China
Kelly Proctor, a Spring 2007 graduate of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, has received a Fulbright grant to study environmental journalism in Beijing, China.
Proctor’s work in China will build on her senior honors thesis, which she completed under the director of Dr. Lee B. Becker, director of the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research. The Cox Center is a unit of the Grady College.
"I'm very excited to see where this opportunity will take me," Kelly said. "I feel extremely fortunate."
Under the Fulbright grant, Proctor will move to Beijing in December. She plans to attend classes at Renmin University of China and to study how environmental coverage by two major Beijing newspapers has changed as the Chinese business model of journalism has become more consumer-driven.
She also will conduct a study of environmental journalism instruction at Renmin University and compare it with journalism instruction she received at the University of Georgia.
In addition to the grant, Proctor also received a Fulbright Critical Language Enhancement Award, sponsored by the Department of State through the Fulbright Program.
Proctor will study Mandarin in depth in Harbin, China, for four months before the Fulbright commences.
For her honors thesis, Proctor studied two Chinese newspapers' online environmental coverage and compared it with coverage of environmental issues in The New York Times. She found that the Chinese papers were more deferential to governmental interpretations of the issues that was the Times.
Proctor has worked in China twice before, once for a business in Shangai and, in the summer of 2006, for Bloomberg News in Hong Kong.
She also had internships during her studies with the Athens Banner-Herald and with Bloomberg News in Washington. The latter internship was organized by the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism and gave Proctor the opportunity to cover international and national politics, including presidential conferences and Congressional hearings.
In the Spring of 2007, Proctor worked as a reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee.
