Ithacan Website Named Best in New York State

But wait, there’s more ...

Evan Sobkowicz

In addition to the numerous awards presented to The Ithacan by the New York Press Association mentioned in an earlier post, the NYPA also named the Ithacan website the best in New York state. Congratulations to webmaster Evan Sobkowicz ’17 for his terrific website design and constant innovation. 

The Ithacan’s New Banner: Forever May It Wave

Editor-in-Chief Jack Curran, Managing
Editor Kira Maddox and the new banner.

Grace Clauss, our design editor, created this cool new banner to use at Ithaca Today and other events. Also, after years of deliberation, we finally agreed on a new tagline. “Accuracy, Independence, Integrity.” I think it sums up The Ithacan pretty well.

Kira Maddox Named Next Ithacan Editor-in-Chief

Junior journalism major Kira Maddox has been selected as the 2015–16 editor-in-chief of The Ithacan.
The Ithaca College Board of Student Publications interviewed Maddox and junior integrated marketing communications major Sabrina Knight on March 30 and recommended Maddox to Roy H. Park School of Communications Dean Diane Gayeski, who made the appointment.
Maddox began at the paper as a copy editor, then joined the editorial board as proofreader and, this year, as managing editor. In the latter two position, she has read and edited every story published in The Ithacan for the past two years. She will be the paper’s first managing editor to also serve as editor-in-chief.
In addition, she has interned at the Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch and will be interning at the Syracuse Media Group this summer. 

NYPA Once Again Names The Ithacan the Best College Newspaper in New York State

The Ithacan has once again been named the Best College Newspaper in New York State by the New York Press Association. The award, the NYPA’s top collegiate honor, was announced March 28 at the organization’s annual convention at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Ithacan Editor-in-Chief Jack Curran ’15, Managing Editor Kira Maddox ’16, Assistant Life & Culture Editor Mary Ford ’17, Multimedia Editor Alexis Forde ’17 and Chief Copy Editor Rachel Wolfgang ’17 attended the convention and accepted the award on behalf of the paper.

The award is for work produced during the calendar year 2014 (Megan Devlin ’14, spring editor-in-chief; Jack Curran ’15, fall editor in chief).

In addition to being named the best overall college paper in the state, The Ithacan and its staff members received the following awards:

Awards for the Paper 

• First Place for Best Sports Coverage
• First Place for Best Use of Social Media
• Second Place for General Excellence
• Second Place for Best Editorials, for “Pay Raise Reveals Disengagement,” February 6, 2014, “Survey Says: Tell Us Now,” February 13, 2014, and “Transparent SGA Puts Up Wall,” May 1, 2014.
• Third Place for Design

Awards for Individuals

• First Place for Best Feature Story — Steven Pirani ’16, for “Hot Pursuit,” September 11, 2014.
• Second Place for Best Photography — Caitie Ihrig ’18
• Third Place for Best Photography — Yana Mazurkevich ’18
• Third Place for Best News Story — Elma Gonzalez ’14, for “Rochon’s Compensation Outpaces Faculty Salaries,” January 30, 2014.
• Third Place for Best Column — Amelia Erikson ’16, for “Mental Illnesses Are Not Slang,” September 11, 2014, and “Personality Test Is Only a Novelty,” December 4, 2014.
• Honorable Mention for Best News Story — Jack Curran ’15, for “Millenials Facing Greater Competition in Labor Market,” November 6, 2014.

Amelia Erikson

Steven Pirani

Jack Curran

Caitie Ihrig and Yana Mazurkevich

Spring 2014 Sports Editor Steve Derderian, Fall 2014
Sports Editor Miles Surrey and current Sports Editor
Kristen Gowdy

More from Aaron Edwards

Former EIC Aaron Edwards ’12 just published a BuzzFeed piece on “Creating Editorial Process Before a Finished Product.” And yes, he manages to work Beyonce in there. 

Spring 2015 New York Ithacan Alumni Dinner

The spring National College Media Convention in New York brought current Ithacan students attending the conference together with our New York–area alumni for our annual dinner at Heartland Brewery on W. 43rd St. We had a great turnout, giving our alums a chance to catch up as well as to share their wisdom and experience with their current counterparts on the editorial board. 

From left, Taylor Palmer ’14, Chloe Wilson ’14, Proofreader Christie
 Citranglo,  Photo Editor Corey Hess, Michelle Boule, Alex Evans ’13,
Rachel Orlow ’13 and Shawn Steiner ’13.

From left, Chief Copy Editor Rachel Wolfgang, Graham Hebel ’13, Online
 News Editor Max Denning, Gillian Nigro ’14, Editor-in-Chief Jack Curran
 and Aaron Edwards ’12. 

From left, Nic Barajas ’08, Deepa Shah ’06, Matt Quintanilla ’07,
 Assistant News Editor Aidan Quigley, Assistant News Editor Natalie
 Shanklin, Erin Geismar ’09, Casey Musarra ’11, Vanessa Leong ’00
and Kelli B. Grant ’04.

From left, Assistant News Editor Jonathan Beck, Libby Sile 11, Casey
Musarra ’11 (again), Andrew Weiser ’11, Bill Earl ’09, Patrick Doyle and
Assistant Life & Culture Editor Mary Ford.

Ithacan Wins CSPA Gold Crown and Apple Award

From left, Assistant News Editor Natalie Shanklin, Online News Editor
Max Denning, Editor-in-Chief Jack Curran, Photo Editor Corey Hess,
Assistant Sports Editor Jon Beck and Assistant News Editor Aidan
 Quinn accepted theCSPA Gold Crown Award in New York City.

 The Ithacan was presented with a Gold Crown award by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association at the spring National College Media Convention on March 13 at the Sheraton Times Square Hotel in New York City. The Gold Crown awards are the highest honors presented by CSPA.

 The award was in the “hybrid” category, described as “a publication that works to combine their digital and print publications as one.” The award was for work produced during the 2013–14 academic year (Megan Devlin ’14, editor-in-chief).

 The judges’ commented that, “It’s so easy to find ‘must read’ stories in every issue of The Ithacan. The paper excels at campus news reporting on relevant topics. Substantive research and strong interviewing skills are evident throughout The Ithacan. Facts, stats, surveys, and infographics expand the coverage. Editorial leadership is evident on the ‘Opinion’ page. The tag line ‘at your fingertips’ introduces a reader-friendly digital site with diversified coverage on serious topics, such as racial inequality. The website has engaging bloggers who comment on everything from the minutiae of everyday college life to anthropomorphic advertising. Diversity is the key to The Ithacan’s success.”

 The Ithacan was one of only four newspapers in the country to win the Gold Crown in the “hybrid” category. The others were the Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University), The Iowa State Daily (Iowa State University) and the Rocky Mountain Collegian (Colorado State University).

From left, Hess, Quigley, Denning,
Beck and Shanklin with the latest
Apple in The Ithacan’s orchard.

 In addition, The Ithacan took the First Place Apple Award for Best Tweet and Third Place for Best Homepage in the convention’s on-site Best of Show awards at the March 14 closing session.

Founded in 1925, the CSPA is owned by Columbia University and operated as a program affiliated with its Graduate School of Journalism. The Crown Awards, first presented in 1982, are the organization's highest recognition of overall excellence.

Ithacan Ranked Gold Medalist in Annual CSPA Newspaper Critique

The Ithacan has been named a Gold Medalist for the 2013–14 academic year in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s annual college newspaper critique.

Among the judge’s comments, “Congratulations on publishing an outstanding print and digital newspaper and your Gold Medalist and All Columbian honors. You entertain, inform, practice enterprise journalism and serve as a student forum, all in an exceptional manner.”

Each year the CSPA evaluates member papers on overall content, news, depth reporting, features, opinion/editorial, sports, arts/entertainment, editing/headline writing, and design/graphics based on more than 150 specific criteria. This year the paper scored 963 on the critique’s 1,000-point scale. The CSPA consistently ranks The Ithacan as a Gold Medalist, its highest category. All Columbian Honors are given within a scorebook section when the sectional total reaches 95% or more of the possible points.

Ithacan Students Honored for Individual Work

Jennifer Williams, “Here Comes the Sun”

Five Ithacan students have been honored with 2014 Gold Circle Awards in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s annual competition honoring work by individuals in collegiate publications. The 2014 awards are for work produced during the 2013–14 academic year.  The individuals honored were:

• Jennifer Williams ’16, Second Place for Single Feature Photograph for “Here Comes the Sun” (The Ithacan, April 3, 2014)
• Gillian Nigro ’14, Certificate of Merit for News Writing for “Who's Your Daddy?” (The Ithacan, April 17, 2014)
• Jackie Eisenberg ’14, Certificate of Merit for General Feature Story for “Break Out” (The Ithacan, March 20, 2014)
• Corey Hess ’16, Certificate of Merit for Single Sports Photograph for “Who’s on First?” (The Ithacan, April 24, 2014)
• Durst Breneiser ’15, Certificate of Merit for Single Sports Photograph for ”Raising the Bar” (The Ithacan, December 12, 2013)

The 2014 competition attracted 11,407 entries.

Corey Hess, “Who’s on First?’

Durst Breneiser, “Raising the Bar”

Lauren DeCicca Shortlisted for “30 Under 30”

Lauren DeCicca ’11 made the 2015 shortlist of in the “30 Under 30” an annual ranking honoring talented young photographers under the age of 30. The competition is sponsored by IdeasTap, Magnum Photos and The Photography Show. Her work was featured in a September 2014 interview in The Ithacan.

Kevin McCall ’12 is Assistant SID at Marist

Former sports editor Kevin McCall ’12 is an assistant sports information director at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He has overseen publicity for seven of the Division I institution’s 23 varsity sports teams and created content for the Marist Athletics website since he began the position in September. Kevin had been interning in the New York Mets media relations department. 

Compelling Work from Aaron Edwards

In addition to producing digital news, Aaron Edwards ’12 has been busy reminding us what a talented writer and journalist he is. In December, his piece “Diversity: Don’t Talk About It, Be About It” was featured as part of the “Predictions for Journalism 2015” series on the Nieman Foundation’s NiemanLab site. And now “My Grandfather Rests on a Hill That Leads to Heaven” — his moving account of attending his grandfather’s funeral in Jamaica — has appeared on BuzzFeed. Check them out!

The Happy Couple Returns

Former Ithacan managing editor Whitney Faber ’12 and fiancé Chris Roach ’11 returned to campus today to make arrangements for their Sept. 16 wedding in the college chapel. The couple, who live in Boston, stopped by the Ithacan to check out our new office. It was great to see them again and have the chance to congratulate them on their engagement, to introduce them to current editor-in-chief Jack Curran, managing editor Kira Maddox, news editor Kayla Dwyer, Life & Culture editor Steven Pirani, design editor Grace Clauss, assistant design editor Allie Teodore and webmaster Evan Sobkowicz. Plus it’s always fun watching alumni who graduated before Sept. 2013 react to our new space.

Lauren DeCicca’s Photo Selected for Time’s ‘Defining‘ Instagrams of 2014

A photo by former Ithacan photo editor Lauren DeCicca ’11 has been selected by Time magazine as one of “29 Instagrams That Defined The World in 2014.” The photo, captioned “Goodbye Thingyan, catch ya next year!” can also be viewed on Instagram. 

Lauren returned to campus in September during a visit back to the States and sat down for a Q&A with Ithacan Life & Culture editor Evin Billington. Check out the audio slideshow here. 

Thank You, Twitter

Twitter certainly picked an interesting place to cut off the subject line when I shared that last post.

NewsPro Ranks Ithaca College Journalism Program #11 in Country

Ithaca College’s journalism department made NewsPro’s 2014 list of the top-25 journalism programs in the country, coming in at #11. You can find the complete story in their December 2014 issue, along with the Park School’s latest promotional ad.

The Fall Conference in Philly

Four current students attended this fall’s National College Media Convention Oct. 29–Nov. 2 in at the Downtown Marriott in Philadelphia. Managing editor Kira Maddox, assistant news editor Taylor Zambrano, assistant sports editor Kristen Gowdy and design editor Grace Clauss attended three days of workshops run by journalism professionals and college newspaper advisers. Kira also co-moderated a discussion session on diversity in the newsroom, and I presented a session titled, “Philosophy for Journalists: Journalism and the Problem of Suffering.”

Chris Baxter ’08 presents at the conference.

In addition, alumnus Chris Baxter ’08, currently a reporter with the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger,  presented two conference sessions which were scheduled as the result of his having been a recipient of the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists for 2013, sponsored by the University of Michigan, in the Excellence in Local Reporting category for his story, “Private Schools, Hidden Riches,” which investigated spending practices at New Jersey private schools for students with disabilities.
The Ithacan was presented with Finalist Awards in the National Newspaper Pacemaker and National Online Pacemaker competitions. The Pacemaker is widely regarded as “the Pulitzer Prize” of collegiate journalism.” In addition, the paper won 7th place in the conference’s on-site Best of Show competition in the newspaper category and 8th place in the website category.

From left, Taylor Zambrano, Kira Maddox, Kristen Gowdy
and Grace Clauss with the Ithacan’s Pacemaker Finalist
Awards.

The high point of the trip, apart from the cheesesteaks, was getting together with our Philadelphia alumni. We’ve built up a small concentration of alums there, so we got them together with the students attending the conference. Most of them were able to make it to dinner at Smokin’ Betty’s for an evening of good food and good conversation.

Clockwise from left, design editor Grace Clauss, Tricia Nadolny ’09, assistant
 news editor Taylor Zambrano, Josh Mellman ’09, Cory Francer ’10, Michelle
 Skowronek Horner ’11, assistant sports editor Kristen Gowdy, Noria
 Litaker ’06, Chris Baxter ’08 and managing editor Kira Maddox.

Alumni Weekend 2014

This year’s Alumni Weekend celebration wasn’t quite on the scale of 2013, when we celebrated the 40th anniversary of Ithaca College’s communications school, but it still provided an opportunity see get together with some old friends and for current students and alumni to interact. Several visitors dropped by the office, and we had a chance to join a few of them for dinner at the ever-popular Viva. 

From left, former editor-in-chief Erin Geismar ’09, former
editor-in-chief Erica Hendry ’09, former photo editor Max
Steinmetz ’08, and current news editor Kayla Dwyer ’17. Erin
is currently Long Island editor for Newsday.com, Erica is
a digital producer for NPR in Washington, D.C., and Max is
completing his M.F.A. thesis in creative and professional
 writing at Western Connecticut State.

From left, former editor-in-chief Libby Sile ’11, current
editor-in-chief Jack Curran ’15 and current news editor
Kayla Dwyer ’17 at the Big Desk in the Ithacan office.
Libby is currently an associate editor with Departures
Magazine at Time Inc.

Tricia Nadolny Talks to the News Staff

Former Ithacan news editor Tricia Nadolny ’09, now a city hall reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, skyped in on October 5 to give our staff advice about how to pursue a career in journalism. She offered useful suggestions on how to build a portfolio of work, pursue internships and work toward professional success. Her own career can serve as a worthy model for students just starting out.

That’s PROFESSOR Delaney to You

Former sports editor Brian Delaney ’04, now a lecturer in our journalism department, collaborated with Professor Anthony Adornato to present a Saturday morning workshop on interviewing skills for our campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists on Sept. 27. He did a great job — he’s a natural in front of a classroom. Or he may just have been in a good mood because he’d recently gotten married.