About

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists Education Foundation is a tax-exempt charitable organization [501(c)3] devoted to the education and training of new and experienced columnists everywhere. The foundation was incorporated in 2003 in the state of Texas.

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists, founded in 1977, is the nation’s oldest and only journalism organization dedicated to advancing excellence in column-writing and writers of serial essays and blogs. The NSNC helps promote the NSNCEF.

For 20 years, 1999-2019, a scholarship was offered through a writing contest. The scholarship program of the NSNC Education Foundation is on hiatus. The contest was open to undergraduates (including seniors) who wrote bylined general interest, editorial-page or specialized (humor, sports, business, arts etc.) columns published in the print or online editions of college newspapers, i.e., one whose main circulation is on a university or college campus. There was no entry fee. In 2012, the scholarship was named the Jeff Zaslow College Columnist Award, for the columnist and author who died earlier that year. From 2017-19, the generous underwriter of the award was the Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota on behalf of Jeanne Phillips aka Dear Abby, the long-running syndicated advice column.

For more information about the foundation, please use our Contact Form.

About the background video: Teletype M15 Printing, posted in 2013 to YouTube by Tele Tweety

About the heading photograph: Photo by Carley Lanich, Media School at Indiana University, from “Indianapolis Star Reveals New Office, Increased Engagement” The Media School Report, March 17, 2015