Third Annual Best of College Newspapers Contest: Accepting Nominations

Did you know that because we've hit our third time around, we can now call it "annual"? Effective immediately, I'm accepting nominations for four categories of Paper Trail's Best of College Newspapers contest.

• Story of the year
• Nonstory of the year
• Newsmaker of the year
• Best Alternative Media Outlet

I've axed the "Best Columnist" category because, honestly, I don't read student newspaper columns, I almost never mention them in the blog, and cutting one out saves me a lot of time.

On the other hand, I'm leaving A LOT of time for nominations, mostly because I'm smart enough to realize college kids are mostly at home for the holidays right now—and who reads blogs when they're not in class? Nerds, that's who, and there aren't that many of you. Leave suggestions in the comments or mail them to papertrail@usnews.com.

Anyway, because there won't be much news coming out of the higher education world over break (I hope), I'll be posting updates about the contest nominations throughout the next few weeks. Voting will begin sometime in January (I can't get more specific than that: I want to keep you tuning in.)

The prize is strictly intangible (pride, bragging rights), and we all know the real winner is Paper Trail (hooray page views). Ready. Set. Nominate!