West Milford grad earns Abelson Scholar status

West Milford resident Kalleen Ozanic, who’s studying journalism at Quinnipiac University, recently won the university’s $10,000 Abelson Scholarship.

Ozanic graduated summa cum laude in May with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and is pursuing her master’s in journalism.

The scholarship is meant to encourage upper-level journalism students to pursue a career that explores the intersection of money and power. Quinnipiac trustees endowed the scholarship in memory of Alan Abelson, who for decades wrote the influential “Up and Down Wall Street” column in Barron’s magazine.

“I feel encouraged as the Abelson Scholar to make business journalism more accessible,” Ozanic said. “Speaking from experience, the economy is a hefty topic to learn about. I think current business journalism offers a wealth of information to those who already have the tools to understand it. Going into my graduate year in journalism as the Abelson scholar, my goal is to create a capstone project written for audiences with and without financial backgrounds that encompasses the informational heart of business

Quinnipiac is expanding its focus on financial communications and business journalism with a new minor launching this fall that teaches business students critical writing and analytical skills and lets communications majors study accounting, finance and economics.

Sara Silver, QU’s Abelson professor of business journalism and financial communications, noted that journalists’ mission is to hold power to account, but they most often focus on public agencies and nonprofits.

“The private sector needs just as much oversight as the public sector,” she said. “Quinnipiac is taking the lead in training journalists to analyze and ask hard questions of companies, which often depend on public funding by issuing stocks or bonds, taking tax breaks and signing government contracts.”

Ozanic graduated from West Milford High School in 2019 and has continued to excel at Quinnipiac, earning placement on the Dean’s List in the fall of 2020 and 2021. She had previously won an academic and track and field scholarship.