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. With razor wit, he called out investment fads, questioned market wisdom, and uncovered fraud in public companies. 

“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. The program draws on the university’s strengths to encourage students to study across disciplines and make themselves more valuable as journalists, since business is among the healthiest part of the news industry, and in public agencies, investor relations, and investment funds.  

Sara Silver, QU’s Abelson Professor of Business Journalism and Financial Communications, notes 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.”