Journalism students from Humber College won 11 awards at Columbia University’s 2021 collegiate awards competition held by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in New York.
With 39 yearbook categories and 52 digital media categories in the running, Humber won six awards for the newspaper EtCetera, and five awards for Convergence magazine – including one staff award for each publication.
“The awards speak to the strength of our journalism school. It speaks to the strength of the work that we do here,” said Guillermo Acosta, Senior Dean of the Faculty of Media and Creative Arts.
“When you get these awards, it really is a validation of that work. It makes me proud to see how many categories and the type of work the students are getting because this really speaks to the quality of the work and the quality of the learning experience,” he told Humber News.
A total of 606 winners were announced, all judged on their excellence in design, photography, concept, coverage and writing.
For Humber graduate student Kristen Cussen, who won three different categories for her work at Convergence magazine, said the awards meant that all her hard work and long hours of zoom calls were recognized.
“I put so much work into that, it’s nice to see Humber recognized for everything. We all worked so hard during the pandemic, so knowing we did that online, and it came all together and won awards, it’s very exciting to me,” she said.
Cussen and her classmates built most of the magazine online during the pandemic, and when they were able to return to the campus, they stayed in the newsroom until 9 p.m.
“It was fun because even though you’re stressed, you’re stressed together,” said Cussen.
Cassondra Daley won her award for a story she did about Humber College student Hope Agbolosoo. He was born in Ghana and launched a GoFundMe page to raise money to build new basketball courts in his community back home.
“I came across his story, and I was really inspired. I was like, ‘I definitely need to write more about him because I think that he deserves to have people know his name because of what he was doing,’ and he’s still doing to this day,” she told Humber News.
Daley was surprised when she found out that she won an award for that story, and believes Agbolosoo will be happy to hear about it.
Anna Beatriz De Santanna, David Pastor, Garrett Thomson, Jared Dodds, Julia Alevato, Liliia Smichenko, Melanie Valente-Leite and Natalie Vasyliuk also won for stories published for Humber College.