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LAWRENCE -- A University of Kansas journalism student from Shawnee recently waltzed away with a national honor by combining her interest in ballroom dance with a journalism magazine assignment.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication awarded graduate student Frances Gorman an honorable mention in its annual Student Magazine Contest. Gorman won one of two honorable mentions out of 16 entries in the individual magazine start-up category for her prototype entry, Ballroom Magazine.
In addition, the Jayhawk Journalist, a student-produced magazine published each year by the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at KU, won an AEJMC award. It received third place out of 20 entries in the single issue of an ongoing magazine, general excellence category.
Gorman choreographed her magazine idea after a professor suggested she select an area of interest that did not have a magazine to represent it. The one-year project included preparing a business plan and a magazine prototype.
Editors and publishers from around the United States judge the AEJMC contests. John Carter, consultant for the Hearst Corp., judged the individual magazine start-up category.
"The potential for success starts with the subject matter, and Ballroom may be offering something not available elsewhere," Carter wrote in his critique.
The award for the Jayhawk Journalist showed that its student staff rose to the challenge of creating a professional, readable magazine for KU journalism school alumni, said Carol Holstead, associate professor of journalism. Holstead teaches the magazine class that produces the Jayhawk Journalist.
"Reading the Jayhawk Journalist made one want to pack up and move to Kansas for the clear-eyed notions of what journalism is and what journalists should be doing," wrote Sid Holt, contest judge and editor-in-chief of Adweek.
"The honor of winning this contest is having your work judged by a prominent magazine editor or publisher," Holstead said.
The journalism school submits entries for AEJMC awards every year. In the past nine years, KU students' work has won 27 times in various magazine categories. Three of those years, student projects won first, second and third place plus honorable mentions in the individual start-up project category.
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