Dollars & Sense Political Reporting Team Returns from Michigan with National Recognition and Exclusive Insights

April 15, 2025

Baruch College’s award-winning student publication Dollars & Sense has earned yet another Silver Crown Award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) for best collegiate reporting in the digital news category. This recognition continues the program’s long legacy of excellence in student journalism—and comes on the heels of its latest immersive reporting trip to Michigan, a pivotal swing state in the 2024 presidential election.

Led by Andrea Gabor and Gisele Regatão, last year’s political-reporting class brought students to key locations across the state during spring break 2024, including Detroit, Dearborn, Benton Harbor, and Lansing. The class aimed to uncover how economic revitalization, affordable housing, and voter engagement—particularly among Arab-American and Muslim-American communities—are shaping the state’s political future.

Over the course of eight days, students conducted on-the-ground interviews, photographed neighborhoods, and explored pressing local issues like land-use taxes, public transportation, and racial and economic divides. Highlights included meeting with state legislators from both parties and exploring how redistricting and grassroots activism are influencing Michigan’s political landscape.

This Michigan trip was the fourth in a series of political travel reporting classes organized by the journalism department. Previous trips included Maine (2018), Arizona (2022), and a remote reporting project focused on the El Paso–Juárez border during the pandemic—all of which have won national awards. These courses build on a tradition of immersive learning that began with student trips to Cuba in 2015. Students spend the semester leading up to the out-of-state trips doing research and reporting, and the weeks following the trips writing, producing, and polishing their work for publication.

Learn more about the full project “Michigan’s Bumpy Ride to the Election: Protest, Politics, and Potholes” on the Dollars & Sense website.

* This copy originally appeared in The Weissman Newsletter. Visit the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences to read about its undergraduate and graduate academic programs.

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