Former student Mary Calvert of the Washington Times has just learned that she is the winner of this year's Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for her project "Lost Daughters," about sex selection in India. This Award is particularly poignant for me, given that Mary was on the team that won the student division of this award back in the 1980s for the project "Helpers in the War on AIDS," carried out in the photo story class at San Francisco State. Congratulations, Mary.

The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award honors the outstanding reporting of the lives and strife of disadvantaged people throughout the world. Known as the "Poor People's Pulitzers" within the press arena, these award recipients have brought to light issues spanning from child abuse and juvenile crime to discriminatory banking practices and prejudice against AIDS victims.

Established in December of 1968 by a group of reporters covering Robert Kennedy's presidential election, the award program has far exceeded the expectations of its founders, according to its site. Led by a committee of six independent journalists, the Awards are judged by more than fifty journalists each year. It has become the largest program of its kind and one of few in which the winners are determined solely by their peers.