EMERGE magazine, produced by students at the University of Guelph-Humber (UofGH), has won multiple awards in an international competition.

The magazine, for young university graduates, won seven awards at a competition hosted by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA).

The CSPA’s Gold Circle Awards program is affiliated with the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York City.
The annual CSPA awards are open to student-produced newspapers and magazines from colleges, universities and secondary schools throughout the United States and Canada. This year attracted 10,444 entries; of these, judges chose 960 winners for individual achievement by student writers, editors, designers and photographers.

This year’s award winners from the University of Guelph-Humber are:
    •    1st Place, Special or general interest magazine Portfolio: Jasmine Kabiling, D’Loraine Miranda
    •    1st Place, Informational graphics, Portfolio of work: Jenilimai Nucum
    •    2nd Place, Non-fiction column: Corey D’souza, “Getting Pot-litical”
    •    2nd Place, Use of a designed or art headline: Jamie Bertolini, Jasmine Kabiling and Megan Santos, “O.Noir”
    •    3rd Place, Informational graphics: Jenilimai Nucum, “Consumption”
    •    Certificate of Merit, Overall Design, General Interest Magazine: Staff, EMERGE Magazine
    •    Certificate of Merit, Special or general interest magazine multi-page presentation: Jamie Bertolini, Jasmine Kabiling and D’Loraine Miranda, “Ones to Watch”

UofGH Program Head of Media Studies, Jerry Chomyn, credits this recognition to the media studies students working together.

“The journalists wrote the stories. The photographers took the pictures. Those in digital communications worked on web presence, and the public relations students worked on promotion of the magazine,” said Chomyn. “It was truly a collaborative effort where they all learned from one another.”

Meanwhile, the UofGH magazine program has evolved, noted Kimberley Noble, a faculty advisor for Emerge and a journalism/magazine instructor in the Media Studies program.

In 2011 the production course was overhauled, said Noble. "We opened it up to students, who designed a magazine from scratch, working from their mandate and mission upwards, and identifying and defining their own target audience," she explained.

The first issue from the 2011 graduating class was modeled after Spacing magazine, and the 2012 graduating class (which added veteran magazine writer and editor John Fitzgerald as an instructor, while art director John Bullock also led three design workshops with the students) produced the issue that won big at Columbia. "The Guelph-Humber magazine students wrote, designed and laid out all of the content... which is one of the stipulations for the Columbia awards, and one reason we are so proud to have won these awards," said Noble.