The Todd Smith Fellowship

This fellowship memorializes a 1982 graduate of Washington and Lee whose deep devotion to the profession of journalism and to international reporting led to his untimely death. Todd Smith was brutally murdered in November 1989 in Uchiza, Peru, by The Shining Path guerrillas and drug traffickers.

The fellowship provides an annual stipend to enable Washington and Lee journalism majors in the journalism or business journalism sequences to serve an internship with the international news service Reuters in one of its Latin America bureaus.

Awarding of the internship is based on how closely the application reflects Todd Smith's interest in promoting understanding of foreign issues and cultures through journalistic endeavor. Proficiency in Spanish or Portuguese is highly desirable. If the Todd Smith Fellow is an undergraduate, he or she must register for Jour 453, News Internship.

Applications should be addressed to the department head and include 1) a cover letter specifying the applicant's interest and background in the proposed subject or country and the applicant's suitability for an internship with Reuters; 2) the applicant's resume, emphasizing journalistic work already accomplished.

The internship will be served in the summer after the junior or senior year.

Further information is available from the head of the journalism department. The department ordinarily cannot support projects that require travel to countries on the State Department's current travel warning list. To see a list of those countries, click here.

The Department of Journalism and Mass Communications administers the income from the Todd Smith endowment.