Open Campus reporter wins national award for her coverage of Black male mentorship

The National Association of Black Journalists recognized Lisa Kurian Philip, a higher-ed reporter at Open Campus partner WBEZ, with a Salute to Excellence Award for her work covering Black male mentorship.

These awards were announced during NABJ’s national convention and recognize journalists and media professionals who “cover and communicate about the people or issues of the African/African-American diaspora.”

Kurian Philip won the newsroom feature category for her story about how Black mentors are making college possible in one Chicago neighborhood.

To further the reach of this story, she created a mentorship guide and a print zine that the newsroom distributed to schools, coffee shops, and YMCAs. A student at Howard University wrote to her after reading it: “Your reporting had a very real impact — it helped me feel seen and less alone in navigating my own educational journey.”

Kurian Philip is a member of Open Campus’s Local Network, a group of newsrooms where Open Campus has helped place reporters on the higher-ed beat. Reporters in the Open Campus Local Network are employed by their local newsrooms and supported by our team of subject-matter expert editors, who provide story coaching, editing, and coverage planning.

About Open Campus

Open Campus is a nonprofit news organization that ensures communities have the independent information they need about higher education. By placing expert reporters in local newsrooms across the country, we help people understand and influence the institutions that shape their future opportunities.

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