The White House Correspondents’ Association has announced a new scholarship at the University of Tennessee in memory of a recently deceased journalist with Chattanooga ties.
The Carter Holland memorial scholarship will be in honor of the late Carter Holland, a promising young journalist and the son of Lucie and Steven Holland, a longtime White House correspondent for Reuters and a former president of the WHCA. Carter Holland died in 2020.
Both the former Lucie Stephens and Steven grew up in Chattanooga and formerly worked at the Chattanooga News-Free Press.
"The WHCA is excited to partner with the University of Tennessee to help support the next generation of promising young journalists like Carter Holland,” said Zeke Miller, president of the association.
The annual scholarship will be for $4,000, with the WHCA and the university each contributing half.
“The School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee is truly grateful for this new scholarship from the White House Correspondents’ Association,” said Catherine Luther, director of the school. “It will allow our students who are focusing on political and investigative reporting to have the invaluable experience of visiting Washington, D.C. and meeting with established professional journalists covering the White House. I am confident that this prestigious scholarship will serve to further inspire our journalism students to pursue impactful stories involving politics and democracy.”
With the new partnership with the University of Tennessee, the WHCA will now sponsor scholarships at 11 universities around the United States. The others are American University, Arizona State University, Columbia University, Howard University, Northwestern University, Ohio University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Kansas, the University of Maryland and the University of Missouri.
The WHCA also co-sponsors two additional scholarships in partnership with the Asian American Journalists Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Since the association started helping journalism students in 1991, it has awarded more than $1.5 million in scholarships, and leveraged another $1.25 million in aid.
The scholarships are financed by proceeds from the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner and tax-deductible contributions to the WHCA.