The Mercury brought home 19 press awards at the 2024 Texas Intercollegiate Press Association conference in San Marcos, including 13 awards for pre-published work and six awards for live contests.
TIPA is one of the oldest and most well-respected college media associations in the U.S., with roughly 50 two and four-year schools attending to compete in newspaper, radio, magazine and yearbook writing and design during this year’s annual conference, held April 11-13. Awards are handed out in two categories: pre-published, which judge work created by student media teams in the past academic year, and live contests, where TIPA attendees compete in a timed event.
Most prestigious among the awards The Mercury received was the first-place Designer of the Year award for a student at a 4-year school, won by Editor-in-Chief Fatimah Azeem. The Mercury also received multiple first-place awards in pre-published categories: Cartoon Strip/Panel for Grace Cowger’s “An Imminent Fear”; Overall Design – Newspaper for “Censored,” the December 4 issue; Illustration for Cowger’s “Trump’s mugshot proves politics is one big meme” graphic; Photo Illustration for Graphics Editor Katheryn Ho’s “From Webs to Worlds”; and Editorial Cartoon for Anika Sultana’s “Red Light.”
The Mercury also scored second place in Editorial for “Bring our rocks back!”; second place in Editorial Cartoon for Sultana’s “Disappointed to be a UTD student”; third place in Newspaper Cover Design for “Benson, you can’t hide,” the Oct. 30 issue; third place in Cartoon Strip/Panel for Sultana’s “Admin avoiding press”; third place in Op/Editorial Design for “Red Light”; and third place and honorable mention in Breaking News for “Halloween hole in wall” and “Student Affairs removes Spirit Rocks for platforming ‘extended political discourse,’” respectively.
The Mercury’s TIPA delegation placed in six live contests. News Editor Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez won first, second and third place for Live Editorial Writing, PR Crisis Management and PR Release Writing, respectively. Photo Editor Katya Zakarian placed second for Feature Photo, Opinion Editor Maria Shaikh placed third for Critical Review, and “In the Wake of Death,” the March 18 issue, won honorable mention for Best of Show Newspaper.
AMP, UTD’s satire and student opinion magazine, also attended TIPA and won first place for Cover Design – General Magazine for the November issue “Comet Girl Autumn.”
First Place
- Designer of the Year (Division I): Fatimah Azeem
- Cartoon Strip/Panel: “An Imminent Fear” by Grace Cowger
- Overall Design – Newspaper: the December 4 issue by Hilary Nguyen, Fatimah Azeem, Katheryn Ho, Jack Sierputowski
- Illustration: Graphic by Grace Cowger
- Photo Illustration: “From Webs to Worlds” by Katheryn Ho
- Editorial Cartoon: “Red Light” by Anika Sultana
Second Place
- Editorial: “Bring our rocks back!” by Maria Shaikh, Fatimah Azeem, Jack Sierputowski
- Editorial Cartoon: “Disappointed to be a UTD student” by Anika Sultana
Third Place
- Newspaper Cover Design: the Oct. 30 issue by Fatimah Azeem
- Cartoon Strip/Panel: “Admin avoiding press” by Anika Sultana
- Op/Editorial Design: “Red Light” by Maria Shaikh
- Breaking News: “Halloween hole in wall: car crash in UV leaves three students displaced” by Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez
Honorable Mention
- Breaking News: “Student Affairs removes Spirit Rocks for platforming ‘extended political discourse’” by André Averion, Jack Sierputowski, Fatimah Azeem, Maria Shaikh