Judging Procedures

Judging for the 2024 selection should be completed no later than April 16.

The Golden Pen Award is selected by a committee of previous winners. The MIPA office annually invites all previous winners we have an email for to participate in judging.

Nominating portfolios generally are assembled by the students of the nominee - often without the knowledge of the nominated adviser. This may be the first time students have assembled anything like this.

Nominations and the winner(s) are announced at MIPA's spring awards event in April. (Due to the pandemic, this will take place online. Golden Pen winners will be recognized in person as soon as MIPA can safely resume our events.)  Please keep your deliberations and information about the nominees private.

The MIPA office has taken the liberty of providing you with any previous nomination portfolios we have on file (we have all portfolios on file since 2013) for advisers who are nominated again this year. Materials in previous portfolios may not always be reflected in the current nomination given that these portfolios are student-produced and this year's staff may not have thought to include (or perhaps have never seen) work put together by students in past years. It is up to the committee how you choose to use the previous nominations.

Selecting a winner

MIPA's preference in recent history is to honor one adviser each year, although the Golden Pen committee may decide to honor multiple nominees if there's a special circumstance.

There is no rubric for this award - which may come as a shock since we're so trained as teachers these days to have a rubric for everything. In the days of paper nomination portfolios, committee members disappeared into a smoke-filled room on Judging Day to choose a recipient. Those of you who have been through this before can help guide our newer committee members.

Here is the basic criteria we give for Golden Pen Award winners:

A Golden Pen Award nominee must be currently teaching/advising at a junior high, middle or high school. The number of years of service to student media staffs as well as consistent excellence of a newspaper, yearbook, magazine, video program or news website advised by the candidate will be considered. Also a factor is the contribution to scholastic journalism beyond the school.

This is highest honor MIPA gives to a student media adviser.

To help you all work remotely, we have devised a system to narrow the field of nominees and select a winner.

Step 1: Review all of the portfolios.

Each committee member should review all of the portfolios. If you have questions about a nomination or nominee not covered by the portfolio, please direct them to Jeremy in the MIPA office at ask@mipamsu.org or call him at 517-353-6761. He will gather information and distribute it to the whole judging committee.

Step 2: Rank your nominees.

Evaluate the elements included in the portfolio and rank the portfolios from your favorite to your least favorite. Student staffs are asked to include the following in their portfolio nomination:

1. Information about the adviser.

2. A letter of nomination from the editor of the student publication (newspaper, yearbook or magazine) that includes reasons for the nomination and a description of the nominee’s responsibilities for staff(s) and/or classes.

3. Documentation to promote the nominee which includes:

   • listing of staff and publication awards, honors — state, national, regional;

   • a listing of the adviser’s honors and level of involvement in related state and national professional organizations;

   • citations of leadership and example set (these could be testimony from former students majoring in college journalism or former students who are professional journalists);

   • description of the adviser’s role in the development and/or advancement of the present journalism program at your school.

4. Letters of support from administrators, fellow teachers, former students, other advisers and knowledgeable parties.

Step 3: Report your selections and comments about the portfolios to MIPA.

We've created a form for your to report your rankings as well as submit suggestions for how the student staff might improve these portfolios . Alternatively, you can email this information to ask@mipamsu.org.

It is valuable for us to get feedback about portfolios from you (especially for those that are not selected to be honored this year). The MIPA office will prepare a summary of comments and feedback for staffs - but they will not see your raw feedback - which may help them to submit an improved nomination in the future.

Step 4: MIPA compiles your scores

• Each nominee is awarded points for each first, second or third choice vote from a judging committee member. (First choice gets more points than second, second more than third.) The person with the most points wins (in theory).

• If there's not a clear consensus winner from the first round of voting, a second round of voting may be called for and/or deliberations may take place via email, telephone or web/video conference.

• In the event of a tie after the second round of voting, the nominee selected as the first choice by the most judges will prevail.