Awarding over $30,000 in Scholarships
Deadline: October 16, 20242025-2026 BEA Scholarships in Broadcasting & Electronic Media
The Broadcast Education Association (BEA) is the premier international academic media organization, promoting insights, excellence in media production, and career advancement for educators, students, and professionals. BEA administers scholarships annually, to honor broadcasters and the entire electronic media profession. Scholarships are awarded to students that will be juniors, seniors and/or graduate students at BEA member institutions in the 2025-26 academic year – unless otherwise noted in the descriptions listed below. All selected scholarship recipients also receive complimentary membership to BEA’s Honor Society, AERho.
Note: The BEA Founders Awards are for students enrolled in a BEA 2-Year member institution or graduates of 2-Year schools now enrolled in a BEA 4-Year institution.
Before you begin the application you must create a profile with BEA. All full-time undergraduate students attending BEA institutional members receive complimentary membership. If you need a complimentary code, please see your faculty advisor or email to receive the complimentary code. If you are applying as a graduate student, please email to see if your school has graduate membership included in their membership package. BEA membership carries substantial benefits but is NOT required to apply for a BEA scholarship.
Scholarship recipients will be announced in late November, and the money will be awarded in the summer of 2025, to be applied to the 2025-2026 academic year.
QUESTIONS? Please email BEA Scholarship Chair Pete Orlik at or email BEA staff at .
Available Scholarships
For study in ANY electronic MEDIA area…
- Vincent T. Wasilewski Award - $4,000
- Peter B. Orlik Award - $3,500
- Richard Eaton Foundation Award - $4,000
- BEA Founders Award - $1,500
- Edward O. Fritts Award - $1,000
Born December 17, 1922 in Athens, Illinois, Vincent T. Wasilewski would become the 18th President of the National Association of Broadcasters in January 1965. Wasilewski entered the University Of Illinois College Of Engineering in 1940, but World War II would interrupt his studies. He served in the US Air Force from September 1942 until October 1945, and returned to the University at the close of the war. He switched to political science and received his bachelor’s degree in 1948, followed by a degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence the following year. Wasilewski joined the NAB’s legal staff in 1949, where he spent his entire professional career. Like any true broadcaster, Wasilewski was no stranger to public service, having served on the Board of Directors of the Advertising Council, the Advisory Council on Federal Reports and the American Advertising Federation. (source: ilba.org)
Scholarship Details: Single scholarship; $4,000
Sponsored by Patrick Communications
Graduate students only
Peter B. Orlik, 1976, was a founder and a member of the Broadcast and Cinematic Arts faculty from 1969 to 2017. Orlik, a native of Hancock, Michigan, and doctoral graduate of Wayne State University’s mass communications program, was selected as one of six 2024 honorees who have distinguished themselves in their professions. He spent 48 years serving as a CMU faculty member and building its award-winning School of Broadcast and Cinematic Arts before retiring in 2017. It was a journey that took him from the Detroit area to CMU, where he provided the type of training that helped students become media giants.
In 2003, Orlik was inducted into the Michigan Broadcasting Hall of Fame and is the author of five textbooks. Now that he’s retired, he has returned to his first love, the clarinet, and plays in a local band. Currently, he sits as BEA’s Scholarship Committee Chair, continuing to uplift students and providing them with pathways to their future.
Scholarship Details: Single scholarship; $3,500
Sponsored by the Peter B. Orlik Scholarship Endowment
Richard Eaton was chairman of United Broadcasting Co., which owned and operated 17 radio stations He pioneered black-oriented radio programming in the United States by establishing WOOK in Silver Spring in 1947. He also operated the first Cuban-oriented radio station in Miami and the first Japanese-language TV station in Honolulu. Before launching United Broadcasting, Eaton was a weekly newspaper publisher, a radio news commentator for WINX in Washington, D.C., and a reporter for the Mutual Broadcasting radio network.
Scholarship Details: Single scholarship; $4,000
Sponsored by the Richard Eaton Foundation
BEA was established in 1955, initially as the Association for Professional Broadcast Education, but the current name was adopted in 1973. While the BEA organizational name reflects our historic roots in preparing college students to enter the radio & TV business, the members share a diversity of interests involving all aspects of telecommunications and electronic media. The Broadcast Education Association (BEA) is the premier international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production, and career advancement for educators, students, and professionals. The association’s publications, annual convention, web-based programs, and regional district activities provide opportunities for juried production competition and presentation of current scholarly research related to aspects of the electronic media. These areas include media audiences, economics, law and policy, regulation, news, management, aesthetics, social effects, history, and criticism, among others.
Scholarship Details: Two scholarships; $1,500 each
Sponsored by BEA
Preference given to students enrolled in a BEA 2-Year member institution or graduates of 2-Year schools now enrolled in a BEA 4-Year institution
After 23 years as Chief Executive Officer at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Edward O. Fritts launched The Fritts Group to offer a personalized approach to government relations and public affairs. Always an entrepreneur, Eddie previously owned a Mississippi-based media company prior to assuming leadership of the NAB. As a result of Eddie’s direction, the NAB became known as one of the most respected and effective lobbying organizations in the nation. In recognition of his achievements, Eddie has received several national honors, including the 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the NAB. He was named as one of the Giants of Broadcasting from the Library of American Broadcasting in 2010 and has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame and the Alumni Hall of Fame at the University of Mississippi.
Scholarship Details: Single scholarship; $1,000
Sponsored by Edward O. Fritts Scholarship Endowment
For study toward a career in RADIO / AUDIO MEDIA…
The George Voron Company of Philadelphia made electronic test equipment and installed and serviced communications and background music systems, supplying programming for the latter. They built some of the components used in their 1959 construction of WQAL FM in Wyndmoor, PA. Abe Voron was installed as station manager and young Dave Custis, working without pay, assembled a record library and fashioned programming for its November 11 debut. “It was really fun,” reports Custis, ” I could play whatever I wanted,” sometimes even records from his own collection. His format was “very loose”, “a mixture of instrumental music and syrupy popular music of that era” apparently aimed at adults but not entirely excluding hit recordings. With very little publicity, the station attracted an audience which within two years exceeded that of other Philadelphia area FMs. Stereo operations began in 1962.
Abe Voron became a major force in the burgeoning National Association of FM Broadcasters. During the welcome address to their 1968 convention, Abe Voron notes “NAFMB… the only organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to the promotion of FM radio and whose stubborn devotion during those early, lonely years has led FM radio to its present position of universal recognition.”
Scholarship Details: Three scholarships; $3,500 each
Sponsored by the Abe Voron Committee
John Bayliss was one of the best friends the broadcast industry ever had. He adored radio because it suited so well his desire to serve, and to interact with, other people. He was as much in awe of the medium as he was a master of it. In his 25 years of radio management and sales, he established an enviable record of performance and profitability. From October, 1976 to February, 1980, Mr. Bayliss was president of Gannett Broadcasting’s radio division. During his tenure, the division was involved in 15 station transactions, and he earned Hall Radio Report nominations for Radio Executive of the Year and Group Executive of the Year in 1977 and 1978.
From March to December, 1980, Mr. Bayliss headed the broadcast group of Charter Broadcasting’s communications division and was an equity partner in Charter Media Company. He was also owner-operator of Bayliss Broadcasting, which operated KSMA-AM/KSNI-FM Santa Maria, California. His wife, Alice, continued with that endeavor through 1999.
Scholarship Details: Single scholarship; $4,000
Sponsored by the John Bayliss Foundation
For research interest in BROADCAST HISTORY…
The Library of American Broadcasting Foundation (LABF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of broadcasting and other electronic media, reflecting the present and informing the future. Above all, it supports the Library of American Broadcasting at the University of Maryland, the nation’s most extensive collection of broadcast history, policy and tradition, including historical documents, professional papers, oral and video histories, books, scripts. recordings and photographs. It raises funds for the LAB, promotes its use, seeks new collections and advises its administrators.