Thanks to the Great Icy Doom of 2012, we weren’t able to make it Lexington this year to accept our Kentucky Intercollegiate Press Association awards. So we relied on our brave adviser Jacque Day to return them to us. Here’s the low-down on what we missed:
For 2011, The Northerner received 13 KIPA awards. Last year, we received 26. Yeah, we know, it’s a bummer. But when you consider the revolving door that has been student media for the last year and a half, we’re still proud.

We received awards at all levels, from Honorable Mention to First Place. Each one of them was well-deserved. New presentation editor Emily Lindeau won two awards for design, former interim Editor-in-chief Jesse Call took two awards, our staff as a whole won three, and Brandon Barb, Roxanna Blevins, Walter Deller, Brittany Granville, Stephen Wilder and Karli Wood all came home with one award each.

Our readers may be wondering why we feel the need to tout our own accomplishments, to pat ourselves on the back. The reason is simple. KIPA, and other collegiate-level media award programs, are our way of not only reminding ourselves and the NKU campus that our work is valued, but also to let other local universities know that we are a serious publication.

As Student Media, or any student organization for that matter, it is easy to become isolated from the rest of the student body and forget the original intention. However, KIPA helps snap us back into the reality of what we do. We write, and cover the events and stories that affect NKU’s students. By being criticized and rewarded, we are shown for what we do the best, and what we certainly could use improvement on.

These awards are one of the ways that we gauge our effectiveness. By implementing a new Student Life beat this semester and reaching out to other organizations on campus, we are trying new tactics to help students realize why we’re here — for them.

So, keep reading, and we’ll keep improving. We promise. We bet our future KIPA’s on it.