The Miami Student staff won 13 awards at the Region 4 Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) conference on April 4, including the 2025 Corbin Gwaltney Award for Best All-Around Student Newspaper in the large school category, beating out every student paper at a university over 10,000 students in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. This is the second year The Student won this distinction.
In addition to best all-around newspaper, The Student also won in best use of multimedia, conversational podcast, narrative podcast, feature photography, sports writing and science/environment/climate reporting. Additionally, The Student had six finalists in other categories.
Prior to the SPJ conference, The Student won best website in the collegiate category, as well as first and third place in the collegiate opinion writing category, at the Ohio News Media Association Fellowship Day in Columbus on April 3.
Kasey Turman, former editor-in-chief for The Miami Student, said he was proud of the staff for winning so many awards under his term, particularly in such a wide range of subjects.
“I was impressed with everything we were able to win,” Turman said. “I think it also says a lot about our paper going into the future saying we’ve won best podcasts and best multimedia when people are trying to get journalism in different ways.’
Sacha DeVroomen Bellman, journalism professor and the business advisor for all student media at Miami University, said she was glad Miami was so competitive with larger schools like Ohio University, Ohio State University, University of Michigan and Michigan State University. Some universities, like Ohio University, require students to work at the university newspaper before they graduate, meaning the paper typically has a higher volume of staff.
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“I’m very proud that they compete so well with these bigger journalism schools and that they’ve always done very well in the contest,” DeVroomen said.
Taylor Powers, a sophomore journalism and media and communication double-major, won first prize for the best conversational podcast alongside Sarah Kennel and Sarah Frosch. She also attended the SPJ award ceremony in Cleveland, where she received her award in person.
Powers said she enjoyed the event, which featured many guest speakers. She said one speaker, who talked about overcoming newsroom jitters, was particularly interesting. Powers was excited to win an award for podcasting, especially since she only learned how to edit audio and video recordings last spring.
“It was really unexpected,” Powers said. “I edit all the audio and put all the videos together, so it felt nice to have something new I’ve tried be recognized and be awarded.”
The first place winners are now competing in the Mark of Excellence Awards that will be given at the National College Media Convention in October.
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