Student Publication Wins National Award

The magazine Diversity and Distinction (D&D) received national recognition last spring for the quality and breadth of its coverage of multiculturalism in the Harvard community.

The year-old student publication, started last fall by Crimson editor Michael M. Luo '98, was honored by Standards, an on-line multicultural journal, as "the Best of Small Press Print Journals."

In its award statement, Standards lauded D&D for the "range of issues addressed and consistent quality of content."

D&D was created to fill a void that was missing from the College's minority community, Luo said.

Although many Harvard publications address the concerns of individual groups, he said D&D is the first one that deal with concerns pertinent to myriad minority groups.

In his statement to Standards, Luo calls D&D "Harvard-Radcliffe's only publication devoted to addressing the entire Harvard community on issues of diversity and multiculturalism in the broadest sense--including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and physical disability."

Standards is a quarterly journal that includes poetry, fiction and essays. Its focus is multicultural issues in general, but its first two issues have alternately focussed on particular themes--Survival and Resistance.

Luo said he came across the magazine on the World Wide Web last year and e-mailed Standards looking for story ideas.

"[I thought] maybe they could give me money or something," Luo said.

Later in the year, Standards notified D&D of the award competition.

"So I sent them a few pieces and, lo and behold, we won," he said.

Victor T. Chen '98, who is a Crimson editor, takes over for Luo as president of Diversity and Distinction this year.

Chen called the award "a huge kind of acknowledgement" for the magazine.

"[D&D] is really a growing publication at Harvard," he said.

Diversity and Distinction plans to publish four issues this year, Chen said. The first will deal with feminism at Harvard.

Standards can be accessed at http://stripe.colorado.edu/~standard.