Californians for Population Stabilization Announces Five Winners in CAPA Awards Competition for California College Students

SANTA BARBARA (March 2012) – Five California college students have been named winners in the California Population Awareness Awards, a statewide college competition sponsored by CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization). Recipients received cash awards totaling $11,000.

Allison Tate-Cortese, a film and television student at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, will receive $9,500 in awards for her entries in the video, audio and Facebook categories in the CAPAs competition.

“Being honored and recognized for projects that I put thought, time and effort into is the most fulfilling thing for a media maker, and I am so grateful to CAPS for creating this contest and opportunity for students,” said Tate-Cortese, a freshman at USC from Orlando, Florida.

Tate-Cortese’s entries were titled California’s “‘POP’-ulation.” Through simple and clear illustrative messaging – an expanding balloon that ultimately pops if air continues being added beyond capacity – the entries effectively conveyed the limits to population growth.

“Allison gets it. And I’m not just talking about her grasp of the facts associated with unsustainable population growth. She also gets it from an ad perspective. Her campaign was wrapped around a real concept, and she carried the concept over into various creative elements, forming a cohesive campaign. This is what I would expect from a USC film student,” said Brantley Davis, awards judge and executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Davis & Company, of Tate-Cortese’s work.

The $1,500 award in the editorial category went to Robert Neumann, a student at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, whose hometown is Palo Alto, California. Neumann’s op-ed, titled, “California’s Overpopulation Crisis: The Only Wrong Thing to Do is Nothing,” outlined how, if overpopulation is not addressed, “the consequences of inaction are far greater than those of most issues we face today.”

The CAPA Awards were created to increase awareness among California college students of the state’s rapid population growth and to encourage them to explore the sources and implications of continuing growth, and the benefits that a sustainable population would bring. Students from throughout California attending universities, colleges and trade- or career-based schools were encouraged to enter the competition.

The competition theme resonated with award winner Tate-Cortese, who said she entered the CAPAs because overpopulation is an important issue for California. She added, “Working on these projects has encouraged me to learn more about the issues.”

Nick Gailey, a student at Irvine Valley College; and Sarah Ruffner from College of the Canyons, Valencia, also were winners in the CAPA Awards. Each won an iPad 2 in the CAPAs competition.

In addition to Brantley Davis, other contest judges for the CAPA Aw  ards were Keith Cizowski, corporate communications manager for Nissan North America; Robert W. Gillespie, president of Population Communication; Maggie Mixsell, acting teacher at Santa Barbara Community College and the University of California, Santa Barbara; TV and video producer Adam Ross of Santa Barbara’s Black Diamond Productions; and renowned author, ecologist and filmmaker Dr. Michael Tobias, president of Dancing Star Foundation.

About CAPS
CAPS (http://www.CAPSweb.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1986 that works to formulate and advance policies and programs designed to stabilize the population of California, the U.S. and the world at levels which will preserve the environment and a good quality of life for all.