Stephen LaRose and Philip Koch are the 2005 winners of CAUT’s award for excellence in post-secondary education journalism.

LaRose, a freelance journalist, won in the professional category and Koch, a PhD student, won in the student category.

LaRose has worked for 15 years as a special writer and investigative reporter, covering a variety of beats for many publications, including the Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Canadian Press and the Globe and Mail. He won the professional category for a series of articles he wrote for Prairie Dog, Regina’s weekly city magazine, exposing the events surrounding the dismissals and intimidation of staff at First Nations University of Canada.

Koch is a doctoral candidate in interdisciplinary humanities at the University of Manitoba and an experienced student journalist. He has served as both the editor for the UofM student newspaper and as the editor at the university’s graduate student magazine. He has also contributed features and news stories to Canadian University Press. He helped to create Tart magazine and has served as an editor and freelance contributor for a number of cultural periodicals, including Herizons and Border Crossings. Koch won the student category for a story on funding constraints and hardships facing graduate students that appeared in The Gradzette.

The journalism awards of $500 were presented April 28.

Started in 2001, the CAUT journalism awards recognize the year’s best reporting by student and professional journalists of issues related to post-secondary education in Canada. Nominations are submitted by academic staff associations, media organizations and other interested parties. Entries are judged on the basis of relevance, originality, quality of investigation and research, potential impact on policy makers and the fulfilment of professional standards of journalism.