Fullerton College Student Journalists Sweep National Competitions for Magazine Writing and Design
With a bold cover that calls attention to racist histories in Orange County, the Spring 2022 issue of Inside Fullerton magazine earned multiple first-place awards in national student journalism contests, including best cover, best two-year feature magazine, and top awards for writing and design.
The magazine won first place for best cover from Associated Collegiate Press, a major national college journalism association, beating out universities and other community colleges across the country.
Graphic design student Andrea Koehler designed the highly celebrated magazine and cover. Koehler served as creative director for the magazine for two semesters before landing a full-time job as Senior Graphic Designer at West Coast University.
Koehler also won first place for best house ad from the College Media Association, another top national student media organization, for a design that features an original 3D illustration. In addition to her first-place wins, Koehler also won awards from ACP for an illustration accompanying a story on the perils of stan culture and for her page design for a story on the return of Y2K fashion trends.
“I enjoy pushing myself and working hard,” said Koehler. “My time at Inside Fullerton allowed me to do just that and accomplish so many personal goals. I use the new skills I’ve learned and honed from this experience every day in my new role.”
While Koehler swept the design and illustration categories, the magazine as a whole earned the highest honors available to a student magazine. Inside Fullerton staffers took home the first place Pinnacle Award for two-year feature magazine of the year from CMA, as well as ACP’s prestigious Magazine Pacemaker award, which recognizes excellence in design and editorial content.
“The verbal and visual storytelling in the winning magazines is incredible and robust long-form stories combined with shorter quick-reads to pace the reader through the pages of the feature magazines,” said Gary Lundgren, ACP associate director.
Alexcia Negrete, who served as editor-in-chief on the Spring 2022 issue, won third place for reporter of the year at a two-year school from ACP, which recognized her excellence in writing for the magazine over two semesters, her leadership in directing the staff in covering a sensitive topic, as well as her work covering breaking news as a freelance reporter for The Hornet, Fullerton College’s student news outlet.
“The accomplishments made wouldn’t have been possible without my team and adviser,” Negrete said. “While awards are nice, I strongly believe that there should be equal or more importance on the people involved in the stories and their lives. These stories are important for the community.”
Multimedia Editor Misael Cruz’s profile about artist Alberto Lule won second place for ACP’s Ernie Pyle human-interest profile award, which comes with a $1,200 cash prize. A war correspondent during World War II, Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for telling the human story behind the conflict. Cruz’s profile and photos of Lule told the story of Lule’s journey from graffiti artist to gang member to federal inmate to graduate student and exhibiting artist.
In the Journalism Association of Community Colleges’ SoCal regional competition, the magazine took home five awards, including general excellence, and two more first-place awards for Koehler for cover and overall design. JACC is an association of California community college journalism programs, founded in 1955.
Mariana E.G., the Fall 2022 editor-in-chief of Inside Fullerton, won second place in the JACC competition for the Spring 2022 cover story that she wrote her first semester on the magazine, a personal essay about growing up in a Mexican family in Fullerton and finding a KKK flyer on her doorstep. She also won two honorable mention awards in ACP’s Spring 2022 Clips and Clicks contest for the KKK cover story and a news feature on students’ social anxiety around returning to campus after the pandemic, which she co-wrote with Cecilia Wang.
“Inside Fullerton truly made me realize the path I’m taking right now is worth all the obstacles I have encountered on the road,” E.G. said. “I am honored to have my stories published here and honored to have been leading the Fall 2022 issue.”
Spring 2022 staffer Kiara Reyes won an honorable mention in JACC’s magazine photo competition for a photo of disability rights activist Angelica Sano holding up her prosthetic leg while making a TikTok video.
Inside Fullerton magazine is a glossy print and digital publication distributed every semester by Fullerton College journalism students. Journalism professor Jessica Langlois is the editorial adviser and art professor Stephen Klippenstein is the design consultant. Print copies are available in the blue newsstands on campus and at local businesses. The Fall 2022 issue is set to launch in December 2022.
“The students put in countless hours outside of class to shoot photos, nail down sources, write and rewrite stories, proofread and conceive of eye-catching designs for their work,” said Langlois. “It really pays off. They are doing professional quality work and getting the recognition they deserve.”
