Wanted: High school students with aspirations to have their work published in a magazine. Rochester Institute of Technology welcomes and encourages all creative minds to apply.

RIT's School of Print Media is proud to be sponsoring the Young Professionals in Publishing Competition. High school students from across North America are eligible to participate.

The grand prize is the free printing of 3,000 copies of the students' work published in a 16-page magazine. There is no entry fee. The deadline for submissions is March 15.

The goal of the competition is to encourage high school teachers, regardless of discipline, to use the latest self-publishing technologies to encourage student learning by creating a high-quality printed publication. Some ideas for potential publications include creating a cookbook to sell for a high school fundraiser, a writing class publishing its creative writing assignments or an art class publishing student portfolios. The options are only bound by the creativity of the students and their teachers/advisors.

Teachers will play an important role of advisor to the student groups or classes that want to participate. RIT's School of Print Media will provide the template for the magazine and its faculty will be available to offer advice on how to use it.

RIT faculty will judge the entries. Finalists will be chosen on the basis of originality of concept, quality of images and graphics, aesthetics and the quality of the writing. Up to 10 finalists will be selected and each finalist will be awarded 25 full-color copies of the publication. The grand prize-winner will be selected from the finalists. The 3,000 color copies of the winning publication will be delivered to the school.

To learn more about the competition, visit http://cias.rit.edu/printmedia/contest.

RIT's New Media Publishing program prepares its graduates to create and publish content across a wide range of media. The curriculum provides deep knowledge in the workflows necessary to merge text and images to produce Web sites, direct mail advertising, books, magazines and other publications. New media publishing graduates work in such fields as advertising production, digital imaging, Web design and development and print production. For more information about the program, visit http://cias.rit.edu/printmedia.