The AJHA Board of Directors is proposing an amendment to the constitution and by-laws officially assigning the awarding of the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant to the Education Committee.

As explained in this 2022 announcement, then-president Aimee Edmondson tasked an ad-hoc committee with determining the parameters of a grant to be named after benefactor Hazel Dicken-Garcia. At the AJHA Board's 2022 meeting, the Education Committee was tasked with deciding the grant's annual winner. However, that charge had not been codified.

At the 2023 annual meeting, the Board voted to add the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award to the Constitution and By-Laws.

Addendum B, comprising the last two pages of the document, outlines which AJHA committee is responsible for deciding each AJHA Award, divided according to whether the award is for Service, Teaching, or Research.

This amendment proposes that the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant be added as item E under part III (Research Awards) in Addendum B. The wording would be consistent with other items in the addendum, as follows:

E. Education Committee - Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant: The research grant is intended to provide financial assistance to graduate students and junior faculty conducting research in media history, with preference given to scholars researching 19th- and 20th-century journalism standards, equity issues and the media, gender, identity and the media, media and journalism ethics, international communication, Civil War journalism, and/or free expression/First Amendment issues.

This amendment will appear on the annual election ballot, to be distributed to AJHA members via email in September.