Four New Donors to Add Collections to JAWS Archives
As JAWS approaches a milestone with our 40th anniversary, more veteran members are ensuring that our unique story of empowering women journalists can be told in the future.
Four new donors to our archives stepped up to make the past available to the present and future. Nina Zacuto, Pam Moreland, Dawn Garcia and Mira Lowe are adding to the National Women and Media Collection’s Journalism and Women Symposium story told in recordings, governance documents and individual engagements that have sustained and grown JAWS since 1985.
Nina Zacuto is archiving her extensive portfolio of photos and videos taken at JAWS CAMPs. They are a major addition to the JAWS visual history. Nina has been a JAWS member since 2006. She is a former JAWS board member and professional photographer and producer with a long career at NBC News before establishing her own professional practice. She is transmitting digital images to the collection. Nina’s images will become the third major digitized feature in the JAWS collection, which contains:
Newly digitized audio of speakers at camp, 1990-98
All print newsletters from 1987-2012.
Pam Moreland has sent her JAWS records to the collection. Her continuous experience in JAWS adds context as a research resource. Pam’s JAWS leadership began in 1992 as vice president on the newly incorporated organization. She was JAWS president during the 2006 CAMP in Sun Valley, Idaho, and took another board member seat after that. Pam is now a trustee of the JAWS Legacy Fund, the special projects resource. After a trailblazing career in legacy newspapers and communications for Stanford University, Pam is moving back home to Los Angeles, from San Jose, Calif.
Dawn Garcia is preparing to transfer her JAWS material to the collection this summer, starting with photos. She was the first two-year president of JAWS, 2007-09, and made major strides developing JAWS without sacrificing our distinct culture. Dawn’s journalism career began as a reporter and editor in other West Coast papers before joining the staff of the San Jose Mercury News. There, she led coverage of California and Bay Area news. In 2001, she pivoted to the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships Program at Stanford University, where she became overall director in 2016.
Mira Lowe also is sending her JAWS and other personal material to the collection. Mira, president from 2019-21, led us through threats to our survival. Beginning in 2019 and with steady, clear direction, she navigated the organization through challenges to the basic premise of JAWS as an inclusive, multiracial and multigenerational body. In her farewell message as president in October 2021, Mira wrote: “Despite all that we faced, we loved this organization enough to fight with and for each other, to cry together, and to hold ourselves accountable for JAWS’ survival. Even in our moment of distress, we tested whether we could become the ambitious, tolerant and inclusive organization we sought to be. To do that, we did what so many women in history fighting for a cause have always done: we trusted the brilliance and ingenuity of women.”
Mira transitioned to academic leadership after a journalism career as an editor and manager in newspapers, magazines and digital news platforms. She was the first woman editor-in-chief of JET magazine. Mira is dean of the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication at Florida A&M University and active in professional support work.
The four new donors to JAWS archives are joining more than 20 other JAWS members, including NWMC founders Jean Gaddy Wilson and Marj Paxson as donors.
The JAWS archives is a project of the JAWS Legacy Fund that uses a gift in memory of Betsy Wade specifically to keep and celebrate an accurate history of Journalism and Women Symposium so our voice will not be lost.
If you are interested in donating your JAWS material or your other personal records, contact Glenda Holste at glendaholste@msn.com or Gina Setser at ggseter@gmail.com.
--Glenda Holste and Jane Marshall, for the Legacy Fund trustees