Feature

Journal wins five at ICPA convention
Honors for sports, photography and opinion writing

By Heather Shaffer - Editor-in-Chief

I am proud to announce to the UIS community that our newspaper received five awards from the Illinois College Press Association, which held its annual convention Feb. 18-19.

Editor-in-Chief Heather Shaffer accepts a first place award for a feature photo during the Illinois College Press Association Awards Banquet.

The Journal submitted entries to the ICPA in December. We could consider original work by staff members published during the spring and fall semesters of 2004. We entered submissions in both the open category (the category that all schools can enter) and the category of non-daily newspapers with school enrollment of 4,000 and over. The latter is the category in which we received all five of our awards.
Our biggest surprise and excitement was receiving a first place award for a feature photo by Irfan Ahmed. In this photo, Irfan captured Tyson Roan’s priceless expression while choking down a pie during Cabin Fever Games last year.
In this same category, Irfan’s photo of a young girl holding a microphone during a karaoke event last year received a third place finish.
Jason Stuebe came away with two individual third place awards; one from a column he wrote about the Society of Conservative Student’s proposal to bring the Chief Illiniwek mascot to UIS and another for a sports news story he wrote about Nick Adams receiving a job in Maryland.
A column about funding cuts in higher education earned former staff member Liz Moran a third place award in the category of column writing.
I could see the pride in the eyes of every staff member in attendance when we received these awards during the ICPA Awards Banquet.
The Awards Banquet is only a small part of the ICPA convention. Ten of our staff members had the opportunity to attend the convention. Throughout the weekend, they attended workshops on a number of journalism topics; including newspaper layout and design, arts and entertainment writing and sports reporting.
Several of our staff members participated in the annual ICPA jobs fair on Friday morning. The students were able to meet and interview with editors of professional newspapers for potential employment and internship opportunities.
Our photographer Courtney Smith participated in the annual ICPA Photo Shootout competition. The participants were asked to tour the streets of Chicago shooting photos that represented this year’s theme, “Chicago’s economy.” Courtney completed this task and had her photos critiqued by Chicago Tribune photographers.
When not attending workshops, speeches, and banquets, The Journal staff had the opportunity to bond and get to know each other better in sessions we referred to as “power bonding.” We also ate meals and spent quality time together after the convention activities.
It has been a running joke among the editors in our office that there is no “I” in staff. This has been our analogy to try to help our staff member understand the importance of working together. I can officially say that after this weekend we completely eliminated the “I” in staff. Our staff really came together this weekend in a way I never thought possible.
Congratulations to the staff members, past and present, who contributed to our five awards. And thank you to the staff members who attended the ICPA convention. You represented yourselves, your newspaper and your school with pride.

Journal wins five at ICPA convention