Students in the Journalism & Digital Media department recently won two first-place awards in national and state collegiate journalism contests.

Senior Carrie Smith, senior Lewis Markham and sophomore Ben Voelker received a first-place award in the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System competition.

Smith is the general manager of AUTV 20 while Markham serves as the sports director and Voelker is a sports anchor for the “News Break” program. “News Break” was awarded a first-place designation in the 2022 best sports report category.

This is the second year in a row that AUTV 20 won a first-place award in the IBS national collegiate media competition.

Avaerie Fitzgerald received a first-place award in the Ohio News Media Association Collegiate Newspaper and Website Competition.

Fitzgerald, the former managing editor of The Collegian and a 2021 AU graduate, placed first in the multimedia story category. Her entry was a package of print and video stories published in The Collegian and on AU-Live.com last spring, focusing on a student protest during Sexual Assault Awareness month.

The Collegian and AU-Live.com competed in Division B, of the ONMA contest for schools with enrollments under 10,000.

“The IBS and ONMA awards reflect both the mission of our academic department and the excellence of our students,” said Dr. David McCoy, chair of the Journalism & Digital Media department, “The external validation of our program and students by these two noted media competitions is both refreshing and helpful to the growth of our department’s media operations.”