UMaine Today magazine wins three 2019 CASE District I honors

The UMaine Today magazine, the biannual print and online publication of the University of Maine Division of Marketing and Communications, received three 2019 Excellence Awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District I, which represents the New England states, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces in Canada.

It received a Gold Award for Excellence in Web-based Magazine, the category’s highest honor. The UMaine Today magazine website was created to complement the print edition. The online publication, featuring full-length stories and multimedia storytelling, involves UMaine Today magazine writers, editors, designers and photographers/videographers. The online production of UMaine Today magazine is led by digital/print content coordinator Amanda Lozier with support from the Marketing and Communications digital communications team — Mike Kirby, Chris Clark and Brandi McCann.

The article “Cultivating Skills,” written by Elyse Catalina with photographs by Adam Küykendall in the spring/summer 2018 edition, received a Bronze Award for Excellence in Storytelling. The feature tells the story of University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s partnership with the Maine State Prison to provide horticulture skill training to inmates. The workforce development initiative has reinvigorated the prison’s agriculture program, provides food for the facility and local food pantries, and helps reduce costs for the prison and the state.

A video on the story, “Tending the Garden,” co-produced by Küykendall and Catalina, also received a third-place award for Excellence in Video: Other. This is the third consecutive year of CASE District I awards for Küykendall, who received a 2018 Silver Award for Excellence in Storytelling for his video “Market Value,” and a 2017 Silver Award for Excellence in Photography.

A full list of CASE District I Excellence Award winners is online.