As a reporting fellow at the Pulitzer Center, the journalism major and leadership fellow will travel to Copenhagen, Denmark, this summer to investigate underreported policies that release prisoners into society with massive debts. I plan to do so.
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Avery Sloan ’25 is spending the fall semester studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the journalism major will return to the Scandinavian country this summer, this time on assignment.
Elon Jr., editor-in-chief of Pendulum, was recently named a 2024 Pulitzer Center Journalism Fellow. The Fellowship Program is a prestigious fellowship program that selects and funds talented journalists to report on critical and underreported stories. As part of an investigative reporting project, Sloan will return to Scandinavia to investigate Denmark’s underreporting policy, which releases prisoners with devastating debts to the state. She first encountered the subject while taking a criminal justice class during her studies abroad and enjoys the opportunity to draw her attention to this situation.
“Criminal justice is an important topic no matter where you are in the world,” Sloan said. “I was surprised, excited and honored to receive this fellowship, and I look forward to further exploring this topic.”
Elon University has a long-standing relationship with the Pulitzer Center, serving as a partner in the Campus Consortium Network, an educational initiative that brings Pulitzer Center staff and journalists to Elon’s campus twice a year.
Membership in Elon’s consortium gives students the opportunity to collaborate with the Center to develop international reporting projects that can be featured on the Center’s website and disseminated through media partners. In 2023, “Madison Powers ’24” highlighted the dangers of immigration in Latin America. And the year before that, Nyah Phengsitthy ’23 reported on orphanages in Ghana and created a multimedia article about how the organization responded to the pandemic.
Sloan said she feels prepared to tackle a thorough research project because of her on-campus experience. She is a prolific student journalist, and in a recent post on her LinkedIn, Elon News told her network that she has written nearly 200 articles. She also praised Associate Professor Emeritus of Journalism Glenn Scott’s course on reporting for the public good and the lessons she learned from his guidance.
“This class focused on storytelling as well as reporting, and we found it important to dig deeper into the story,” Sloan said.
Before being named editor-in-chief of The Pendulum, Sloan served as a multimedia reporter, copy editor, and political editor. The Apex, North Carolina, native is majoring in Leadership Studies and Political Science.