Seaswells has done it again! Each June, Coastal Georgia Community College submits its very own art and literary magazine to the American Scholastic Press Association for nationwide judging and competition with other literary magazines. And each December, the Seaswells staff are like a bunch of restless children on Christmas Eve as they eagerly wait for the judging results. The 2000 results are in: Seaswells 2000 has reclaimed the award for First Place with Special Merit. This is the seventh time in nine years that the ASPA has given this special award to Seaswells.
But that�s not all! Not only did Seaswells win this distinguished award, but it also was chosen the Most Outstanding College Literary Magazine for 2000, an award it garnered twice in the last ten years and wanted badly to win again. During the last 20 or so years, Seaswells has won over a dozen Special Merit awards and has never earned less than a First Place certificate in the judging.
Over 30 years ago, Leon Rice, the former faculty advisor for CGCC's magazine and newspaper, established a set of standards that put Seaswells in a different league from all but a few magazines in the country. Those standards were refined during the �80s and, if anything, raised in the �90s. The award-winning tradition has now progressed into the 21st century.
That CGCC has won so many awards is very impressive, seeing that CGCC is a somewhat small community college. Most community colleges don't make any attempt to publish a literary magazine, especially on commuter campuses. The absence of a magazine does not mean that students lack creativity or artistic talent; they just don't have the time, incentive, or initiative to create or contribute to a magazine. Every year, at CGCC, we prove that a commitment of time and money to such a project-even if we don�t have 12,000 students-can result in a quality product.
Every year the magazine is judged in five different areas: content coverage (originality, variety of literary styles, variety of artistic media), organization (table of contents, title page, folio line), design (balance on page and on facing pages, type styles, relationships between items on page), presentation (style, sharp illustrations, clear photographs), and creativity (uniqueness). Seaswells 2000 did quite well in all areas: content coverage-380 out of 400 possible points, organization-200 of 200 points, design-150 of 150 points, presentation-180 of 180 points, and creativity-65 of 70 points. The total of all points gave the magazine 975 out of a possible 1000 points. The judges stated, "You have an excellent publication which shows a great deal of time, energy, and talent by editors, writers, photographers, artists, layout designers, and advisor. Best of luck and continued success to all."
The continuing success of Seaswells is possible only because faculty, staff, and students, past and present, are so willing to contribute their poetry, prose, photography, paintings, sketches, and other works of art. The magazine�s staff, who put an enormous amount of effort and time into the magazine, also play a big role in the success of the award-winning publication.
Most people do not realize how much work is involved in judging the art, photography, prose, and poetry contests. The staff must find roughly 25 different committed individuals to judge the contest entries. The most complicated of all categories to judge is the art and photography, because those submissions cannot be duplicated and distributed among the judges like the prose and poetry can. Also all of the art and photography judges must come together to select winners; there has to be discussion, not just a simple tallying of votes.
Before CGCC converted to semesters in 1998, the deadline for submissions and judging was always near the end of the winter quarter. When we converted to semesters, the deadline had to be moved to the beginning of December. In order to put the magazine together, the staff needs a week of free time, uninterrupted by classes, and that occurs only during winter holidays. This means that the Seaswells staff are so dedicated that they gave up a week of their break in December to work on the 2001 edition of the magazine. Right now, as you read, the staff is still working on this year's magazine, preparing a dummy copy, proofing meticulously, checking and rechecking the dimensions and placement of every item on the page in order to make it appealing to the eye.
After all of the hard work has been done and all of the proofs are shipped off to the printer, the staff can then have some fun while planning for the First Copy Program. This year's program will be held on Friday, April 27th, in the Science Lecture Room. The First Copy Program is the first chance that anyone, besides the staff, gets to look at the 2001 edition of Seaswells. Contest winners will be notified by special invitations to the program, where they will be recognized and given their prizes.
As always the Seaswells staff thank and commend everyone who helped in creating Seaswells 2000. They also hope that Seaswells 2001 surpasses last year�s magazine-though that cover will be hard to top-in order to keep the award-winning tradition going for at least one more year. Everyone is welcome to join the staff on the last day of classes this semester at noon in the Science Lecture Room for the unveiling of the latest proof of just how talented this campus is!