Columns Wins 13 Awards in Three Competitions;
Multicultural Alumni Partnership Honored

For the second year in a row, Columns won a First Place Award from the Washington Press Association as the best color magazine in the state, the association announced March 25. The magazine won the same award in 1995.

In three regional competitions held this year, Columns won 13 awards in writing, editing, design, photography and even for the World Wide Web site you are currently browsing.

The UW Alumni Association's Multicultural Alumni Partnership also won an award in a regional competition of alumni relations projects.

"We are proud of both Columns and the Multicultural Alumni Partnership," says UWAA Executive Director Jon Rider, '63. "They represent the high quality of the institution we all serve."

Columns is published by the University of Washington and the UW Alumni Association and is sent to 195,000 alumni and donor households in the U.S. as well as to international alumni. Since it began publication in 1989, the magazine has received 47 awards in local, regional and national competitions.

Founded in 1995, the Multicultural Alumni Partnership supports the recruitment and mentoring of students, faculty and staff of color and promotes diversity within the UW and the UWAA. Its kickoff event, held last October, won a Silver Award in Alumni Relations Projects from the Council for Support and Advancement of Education (CASE), District VIII. Honored were UWAA Program Coordinator Kay Larson and UWAA Trustee Vivian Lee.

The CASE District VIII competition included entries from five states and four Canadian provinces. Winners were announced Feb. 27.

The Washington Press Association competition attracted entries from across the state. Columns' five awards included: First Place Award to Editor Tom Griffin for Color, General or Specialized Circulation Magazines; Second Place Award to Associate Editor Jon Marmor for Features in a Publication for General or Specialized Circulation for his December 1995 cover story, The Fall (and Rise?) of the Ave. Marmor also won a Second Place Award in Black and White Photo Essays for photographs which accompanied that article.

Associate Editor Marmor also won a Third Place Award for a Single Page Regularly Edited by Entrant for his column "On and Off the Ave." Columns Designer Ken Shafer won an Honorable Mention for the design of the Centennial feature in the September 1995 issue.

CASE, District VIII, gave the magazine silver medals in the four following categories: Periodicals-Team Writing, Editor Tom Griffin, Associate Editor Jon Marmor and UW Writer Nancy Wick; Features, Nancy Wick for her article Playing with History; Overall Publication Design, Designer Ken Shafer for the December 1995 issue; and Electronic Media, State of the Art Projects, Editor Tom Griffin for the Columns site on the World Wide Web.

The awards from the Western Washington Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists included a first place award for Nancy Wick's article "Playing with History"; a second place award for Jon Marmor's "The Fall (and Rise?) of the Ave"; and third place awards for Tom Griffin's feature on President McCormick, The Road to Seattle and to Designer Ken Shafer for page/cover design and photo montage. Columns competed against magazines throughout the region in this competition.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists is the nation's largest and most broad-based journalism association, with 13,500 members nationwide.

Send a letter to the editor at columns@u.washington.edu.

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