The Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE, has recognized UCLA Strategic Communications,  the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Health, and the UCLA College with six 2025 CASE Circle of Excellence Awards for outstanding achievements.

The nonprofit’s annual awards honor inspiring and creative work by staff at colleges, universities and schools throughout the world that impacts their institutions and communities and helps transform lives and society.

UCLA Strategic Communications

UCLA Magazine earned a gold award in the magazine category for its fall 2024 print issue, with the cover story featuring retro basketball illustrations and an oral history of Hall of Fame coach John Wooden’s path to his 10th — and final — NCAA Championship with the 1974–75 UCLA men’s basketball team.

Other features included a personal introduction to our seventh and newest chancellor, Julio Frenk, and a story about UCLA’s groundbreaking prison education program, which is helping change women’s lives and getting attention from programs across the country.

“UCLA Magazine stands out for its vibrant storytelling, crisp writing and visually compelling design … altogether, a bold and memorable publication that reflects the spirit of UCLA,” the judges remarked.

Strategic Communications’ Big Ten Commercial, a collaboration with UCLA Athletics, won a silver award in the video category for creating a spot highlighting why UCLA has been the No.1 public university eight years in a row.

The judges said the commercial “was a fantastic end product with great visuals and smart pacing.” They also enjoyed the “voiceover and the humble brag nature of the presentation.”

Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA Health

The David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA Health received a grand gold award — the most prestigious in the writing/news feature category — for their U Magazine coverage of the Amara Yad Project in winter and spring 2024. The two-part story by Dan Gordon chronicled UCLA physician Kalyanam Shivkumar’s decade-long effort to render obsolete the highly controversial “Atlas of Topographical and Applied Human Anatomy,” a product of Nazi Germany. Shivkumar is developing a series of original atlases available to medical professionals around the world via online, open-access publishing.

The story was “beautifully told, which like Dr. Shivkumar’s inspiring work, has become an integral part of bending the arc of history towards justice,” the judges said “This entry distinguished itself from the rest.”

In addition, the medical school’s digital team earned a bronze award in the digital campaigns category for a series of SEO articles spotlighting sports medicine careers that were published during the Paris Olympics. The articles showcased a dynamic field of medicine while athletes were competing on the world’s biggest stage.

The judges praised the timing: “Creative idea on sharing career paths for students without spending a huge amount. Additionally, strong strategies and good use of SEO.”

UCLA College

UCLA College was recognized with a bronze award in the digital magazine category for We are UCLAvian, a bird-themed online magazine that included voices from across its five divisions to celebrate the diverse perspectives, creativity and intellectual exploration that define the UCLA community.

“We loved We Are UCLAvian’s fun and engaging theme and how it used different storytelling techniques,” the judges said. “It makes great use of resources and multimedia, including the playlist!”

Also winning a bronze award was “How to save a life,” a first-person column about a hummingbird rescue and a reflection on the deeper values of empathy, care and responsibility toward all forms of life.

The story “connects readers to our human desire to make a difference in the world,” the judges said.

Congratulations to all our 2025 award winners and their teams for their creative, impactful and extraordinary work!