The prize package for the prestigious Roy W. Howard Collegiate Reporting Award just got a whole lot more fabulous.

For the first time, winners of this year's contest will receive a 12-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Japan and South Korea, followed by a gala awards banquet in Chicago.

In addition to scholarships worth up to $3,000, previous winners of the national contest got an all-expenses-paid trip to Bloomington - nothing to sniff at, but not exactly Asia.

School of Journalism Dean Bradley Hamm, an expert on Asian media, came up with the idea to send winners to the Far East after noting two things: first, the fact that a minority - just 7 percent - of students who study abroad visit Asia; and second, that Howard himself had an Asian connection.

Howard led United Press International from 1912 to 1920 and Scripps Howard Newspapers from 1922 to 1953. Indiana University is home to both the Howard archives, which contain more than 14,000 letters and memorabilia, and the Howard professorship, held by David H. Weaver.

Howard frequently visited Asia for both work and pleasure, said Hamm, who studied Howard's contributions to journalism before joining the School of Journalism as dean last year.

Hamm, who has taught in Osaka, Japan, and Nanjing, China, will lead the trip to Asia, June 11-24. The nine competition winners will meet leading journalists in Seoul, South Korea, before jetting off to Tokyo to take in its technological prowess. Finally, students will travel via bullet train to historic Kyoto, past Mt. Fuji and thousand-year-old shrines.

The prize is a perfect match to Howard's vision.

"He believed that the international mattered," Hamm said. "He believed we need to know, as journalists and citizens, about the rest of the world."

The good news for students is that there's still time to enter the contest, which is co-sponsored by the School of Journalism and the Scripps Howard Foundation. Entries must be postmarked by March 31, and winners will be announced on April 17.

Indiana University students historically have made a fine showing in the nationwide contest. Senior Tony Sams was one of three first-place winners in the 2005 contest, and five IU students have been winners or runners-up since 2000.

The contest is the same as before. Undergraduate students may enter a story, or series of stories, that demonstrates enterprising reporting skills, or high-impact photo essays.