Icon of hands in a white hexagon next to white words that say Elevate & Integrate Diversity, Equity & Belonging
EFA Executive Director Autumn Arnett in a yellow blazer and black top in front of a dark blue background

I am proud of many things regarding my time thus far leading the Editorial Freelancers Association, but standing up the Ruth Mullen Memorial Fellowship program as an extension of the scholarship program of the same name is the one that makes me smile the brightest.

The scholarship program, which was designed to support Black students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) studying editorial fields, was one of the major things that drew me to the Editorial Freelancers Association back in the fall of 2026. As an alumna and supporter of HBCUs, I appreciated the intentionality of the Ruth Mullen Memorial Scholarship in specifically targeting students at these institutions, and it said a lot about the EFA’s commitment to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field.

Once I took the helm of leadership, I realized the scholarship recipients were graduating and going off to do great things in the field of communications and media, but they weren’t joining the EFA. We weren’t engaging with them in an ongoing way. We were proud to share their updates and stories, but that was the end of the engagement.

Last fall, I reached out to all of our past scholarship awardees via email and on LinkedIn. I told them I wanted to grow the scholarship program to include mentorship and offered them a free one-year student membership to the EFA and free registration to our virtual conference. Three responded, and two kept reaching back out — Ja’dori Scott-Stanley, a 2025 scholarship awardee and a current student at Howard University, and Tervonna Pollard, who was a 2024 recipient of the Ruth Mullen Memorial Scholarship and who will be graduating from North Carolina Central University on May 9. These two are now our inaugural Ruth Mullen Memorial Memorial Fellows in communications and marketing.

Woman with shoulder-length hair wearing a black top in front of a white background

Fellow Ja’dori Scott-Stanley

Young woman in a white collared shirt, black blazer, and jewelry in front of a white background

Fellow Tervonna Pollard

Thanks to generous donations that are pushing us closer to the scholarship fundraising goal of $18,000, we have been able to reinvest in those same awardees as fellows. So far, our fellows have supported us with social media strategy, video creation, and graphic design. In turn, they are receiving a monthly stipend, and direct mentorship from both our paid social media consultant, who is an expert in organic and paid media strategy, and myself, whose expertise extends to branding and communications. The fellows meet with each of us once a month to work on a new skill that we then tie to the deliverables they’re producing for us. They’re helping to inform our messaging and outreach strategy — and who better than to help us attract younger members to our storied organization than a current student and a soon-to-be graduate — who are leaving their mark on the EFA already. And I’m so excited to see this program continue to grow into a mutually beneficial program that pours back into the lives of the young people we initially set out to serve.

Autumn A. Arnett
EFA Executive Director