Ariana Glaser has been named the 2025 recipient of a $500 scholarship from an NLGJA South Florida chapter. She says it will help her keep pursuing journalism while managing the cost of a private university and planning for graduate school. NLGJA is a group for LGBTQ journalists, awarding scholarships to cover tuition and reporting.
Glaser, a member of the University of Miami Class of 2028, is double majoring in journalism and music, and has built her college workload around the overlap between the two.
“I’ve always kind of had dual passions, both for music and for writing,” she said.
She started in the singer-songwriter program and added journalism almost immediately, even after an advisor warned the double major would be “close to impossible.” Glaser has written arts and entertainment coverage for The Miami Hurricane and reported on how TikTok has reshaped the music industry for a student magazine.
The scholarship will help cover undergrad costs and allow her to save toward graduate school, she said.
“My dream would be to get my Master’s at Columbia Journalism School,” Glaser said.
Glaser also received an SPJ Florida scholarship in 2025, and she has taken on multiple leadership roles on campus. Glaser, who identifies as bisexual, serves as newsletter editor for the University of Miami LGBTQ Center, a work-study position that became a professional fit when staff offered her the outgoing editor’s role. In addition to formatting and distributing information from campus and community organizations, she writes biweekly newsletters and short “history lessons” on LGBTQ icons.
Florida has imposed restrictions on DEI initiatives at public colleges and some campuses. Private universities, including University of Miami, are not subject to State University System of Florida rules, and UM’s LGBTQ center has remained in place.
She is also copy chief for the yearbook and executive editor at Distraction Magazine, where she edits staff work and contributes her own pieces. Recent stories have ranged from a tongue-in-cheek guide to performative masculinity to an explainer on rights during an encounter with ICE.
Writing has been central to Glaser’s life long before her first byline. “I wrote and published two books before I was 14,” she said, adding that she is currently writing her sixth novel.
Her turn toward journalism accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she wrote an opinion piece for Newsday defending performing arts programs in Long Island Schools. She argued that these programs weren’t prioritized as much as athletic programs amidst the loosening of COVID restrictions. She said it was the first time she realized, “wow, my writing can make a difference.”
At 16, Glaser was sexually assaulted by a chiropractor, an experience she said shaped her commitment to reporting that centers survivors rather than reducing them to a headline. She later published a long investigative piece on Substack, White coats and red hands: How institutional and legal failures enable sex abuse in medicine, weaving her own experience with other survivors’ stories.
Looking ahead, Glaser said she wants her work to focus on the people most affected by the events journalists cover.
“Those are the stories that need to be heard that aren’t always heard,” Glaser said.
Apply for the 2026 scholarship. Applications are due May 4.
