The Southwesterner To Receive $7,500 VersaCare Grant

The Southwesterner will receive a $7,500 grant on Oct. 1 from the VersaCare Foundation to pay for a student editor and student writers in the 2026-27 school year.  The grant was made possible through the efforts of Tom Bunch, PhD, grant manager at SWAU.

“This is a boon for students on the Southwestern Adventist University campus,” says faculty advisor and editor Glen Robinson, PhD. “The Southwesterner is intended to help students feel they have a voice on campus. Writing quality articles and getting paid for them will encourage that even more.”

The Southwesterner encourages written articles, videos, audio recordings, and even photo essays that are relevant to students, faculty, and staff at SWAU.

The VersaCare grant allows for a student editor to be paid monthly for the 2026-27 school year. The Southwesterner is looking for someone with experience as an editor of a student publication. The student editor would be responsible for promoting the website, collecting new articles, videos, and other stories, editing them, and posting them. They would work closely with the faculty advisor.

To help encourage more student writers, the grant will pay $100 each for forty stories during the school year. These can take the form of written articles, video segments, audio podcasts, or photo essays. Not all stories written for the publication will receive payment. To be eligible for payment, the stories must receive prior approval before being submitted. Students who submit stories as part of a class assignment will not receive payment.

Students interested in the student editor position or in writing for pay should contact Dr. Robinson at robinson@swau.edu.