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Fischetti competition honors top editorial cartoonists

Editorial cartooning is not so popular these days, perhaps because we’re in an age where political critique and unflinching observations are often silenced. In this climate, editorial cartoonists play a critical role in bringing attention to situations that might otherwise be passed over.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the New York Herald Tribune, the Chicago Daily News, and the Chicago Sun-Times, John Fischetti exemplified the profession. After his death in 1980, his friends and family established the Fischetti Endowment at Columbia College Chicago in his honor. To date, the endowment has funded scholarships to nearly 500 Columbia Journalism students, and presented monetary awards to 39 outstanding professional editorial cartoonists through the prestigious Fischetti Editorial Cartoon Competition Awards.

Two years ago, Liberal Education faculty member Teresa Prados-Torreira, who teaches a course on the history of editorial cartooning, proposed establishing a parallel competition for student cartoonists. The student competition was endowed by lifetime Columbia trustee Sam Pfeffer, who named it in honor of his wife, Dr. Paula Pfeffer, and former Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dr. Cheryl Johnson-Odim.

Our students have shown incredible dedication and interest in continuing the amazing tradition of editorial cartooning—of questioning and bringing issues into focus when other people would like to pull the curtain opaquely over them. So have the faculty and staff in our Journalism department, who have been immensely invested in the education of our students in Journalism to make sure they are representing the fourth estate and are in a position to carry on the courageous legacy of John Fischetti.

Doreen Bartoni,
Dean, School of Media Arts

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The top Fischetti Editorial Cartoon Award for 2006 went to Ed Stein of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Awards were also given to Steve Breen of the San Diego Union Tribune (a winner for the second year in a row) and Columbia Journalism alum Scott Nychay (’95) of the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

The Paula Pfeffer/Cheryl Johnson-Odim Political Cartoon Contest for Columbia College Chicago students is an annual event sponsored by the Liberal Education department in collaboration with the departments of Art and Design, Journalism, and The Columbia Chronicle. The 2006 student winners are: Gabriel Carroll-Dolci (first), Joevanny Durán (second), Adam Van Vleet (third), and Alexis McQuilkin (honorable mention) for single panel cartoons; and Adam Van Vleet (first), Patrick Cheng (second and third), and Gabriel Carroll-Dolci (honorable mention) for multiple-panel cartoons.