University of Guelph-Humber

Photo by Rebecca Castillo. Some rights reserved. "Emerge" cropped from original.

Emerge Magazine has won a prestigious award at Columbia University’s 2017 collegiate awards competition.

With a total of 1,100 newspapers, magazines and digital publications in the running, Emerge won a gold crown at the event, held by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association at the Sheraton Hotel in New York City.  UofGH students Ryan Williams, Eva Osterlee and Shelby Cockhill were on hand in New York to accept the award.

"I believe the University of Guelph-Humber's approach to education is the key to the success and achievements in not only the media program but all our programs: the link between theory and practice and real life application," said Media Studies Program Head Jerry Chomyn.

Publications are judged on their excellence in design, photography, concept, coverage and writing. In awarding a gold crown – the top honour – to Emerge, the judge singled out several students’ stories specifically.

“Emerge’s interactive digital publication is rich in content and visual appeal,” read the judge’s comment. “It features longform stories, such as Shireen Ahmed’s fight for equality, which expertly incorporate multimedia. Instazine, an instagram-based mini magazine, expands the coverage.

“The print Emerge has a modern look and vibe with its ‘Through the Lens’ theme and snapshots features. The magazine addresses how Generation Y embraces technology and understands the opportunity it brings. Emerge addresses how the digital age has changed how people interact with each other and with the world, a topic every generation can appreciate "

For Emerge, the multi-platform, multi-disciplinary project produced by UofGH Media Studies students, this is another in a series of major international honours.

Since being founded in 2012 as Media Studies' capstone project, Emerge has now won 82 awards. In this past academic year alone, Emerge has been decorated with 22 awards from organizations including the CSPA, College Media Awards and the Associated Collegiate Press. First-place CMA Pinnacle awards were for Best TV Entertainment Program, Best Sports Multimedia and Best Online Ad for the inventive What Kind of GH Alumni Are You, a special branded content project that, at last count, had almost 49,500 page views.

"It's wonderful each year to see what UofGH media students are able to accomplish together in their final term," said Kimberley Noble, one of the four faculty advisors and team of three resource instructors who oversee Emerge, "but this year was particularly gratifying because we asked the 2016 team to create media that followed, and even set, industry trends, rather than just assigning the kinds of projects that had won prizes in the past.

"We ramped up the digital projects, scaled back the print publication to an easy-to-read super-digest that doubled as a conference program, and added an Instagram magazine, letting the students be pioneers who got to decide what that kind of publication was going to be. I didn't know what the U.S. competition judges would think, so it's thrilling to see that they celebrated the results, and even went so far as to describe our program as an innovative leader in post-secondary media education."

Meanwhile, the University of Guelph-Humber will present the Emerge Media Awards – the only program of its kind in Canada, launched in 2015 to recognize excellence in the country's student media – on April 24.

Learn more about Media Studies at the University of Guelph-Humber.