Urbana Wins Prestigious Gold Crown Award
Urbana, the literary arts magazine at Eduardo J. Padrón Campus, won a 2021 Gold Crown Award in the Hybrid Literary Magazine category.
Winners were announced March 22 by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. The awards recognize student excellence in newspaper, magazine, yearbook or digital formats. More than 850 publications entered various categories ranging from design, photography, concept, coverage and writing.
“Seeing our work rewarded makes me feel like those long nights working amid the pandemic chaos were worth it,” said Laura Santos-Somohano, one of Urbana’s editor-in-chiefs. “It is our first-ever Crown Award and I feel we dived right in [by] getting a Gold Crown the first time we were up for it.”
The Hybrid Literary Magazine category includes publications that provide live coverage via a website between print editions. The online coverage can either expand on content that was covered in print or provide completely new content.
Three other literary magazines at Miami Dade College—AXIS from North Campus, Miambiance from Kendall Campus and Café Cultura from Hialeah Campus—earned a Silver Crown Award in the Print Literary Magazine category.
Selections were based on entries produced during the 2019-20 school year.
The Crown Awards were not Urbana’s only recent honors. They won two awards at the Associated Collegiate Press’s Best of Show Awards, which took place virtually on March 20.
The literary magazine’s entry Pelo Malo: An Afro-Latina Experience, written by Padrón Campus Honors College student Ashlie Rodriguez, won first place in the Blog category. In the piece, Rodriguez discussed her journey toward accepting her skin color and curly hair after years of accomodating to white beauty standards.
They also earned sixth place in the Website category. Urbana’s online component includes a blog and sections for literary work (screenplay, poetry, fiction and nonfiction), visual arts (art and photography) and media (music, video and podcast).
Miambiance also received a Best of Show award: second place in the Literary Arts Magazine category.
Urbana was founded in 2007 by English professor Emily Sendin—she serves as adviser—as a printed medium of expression for students at the Padrón Campus. The magazine is published annually.
Last year, Urbana ramped up its social media presence by designing a regular posting schedule and implementing special engagement and promotional campaigns. They also launched their podcast, Urbanites.
Episodes are published weekly. They feature audio drama stories, plays, highlight the magazine’s projects, discuss topics such as intersectionality, and more.
The team’s efforts made them finalists for the Associated Collegiate Press’s Innovation Pacemaker Award for the 2019-20 school year.
Now they have added a Gold Crown to their resume.
“It’s kind of the best feeling being the only [Gold Crown] winner,” said Wolfang Rugeles, Urbana’s design director. “But it’s kind of a shame too because I talk to the people [in other MDC magazines] and they’re cool and their magazines are also really good.”
