Arizona Western College student wins national graphic design award

Arizona Western College student Saghey Barcenas brought home a national graphic design honor that puts Yuma County talent in the spotlight and highlights the creative skills students can carry into campus media, marketing and other digital careers.

Barcenas won NISOD’s 2026 Student Graphic Design Contest, earning recognition for a mural design that traced the emotional arc of a student’s path from the first day of college to graduation. She received the award at the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development conference, held May 23-26 at the JW Marriott in Austin, Texas, during the group’s 48th annual gathering, called Advancing Community College Student Engagement.

NISOD and the University of Texas Center for Community College Student Engagement invite students at member colleges to digitally design a mural for the conference, a contest tied to community and technical college student success. The winning student artist receives $1,000, but for Barcenas the larger value was the chance to have her work judged on a national stage.

That broader stage matters in Yuma County, where Arizona Western College is a major gateway to further schooling and local careers for students who stay close to home, commute from nearby communities or move from an associate degree into a bachelor’s program. Barcenas’ award shows that the same classroom and campus-media experience that supports students day to day can also build polished creative work with value far beyond the region.

Barcenas also co-hosts Siendo Primero on KOFA Border Radio with Melanie Ruiz Lopez. KAWC describes the show as a student-created program about first-generation college students, which gives her win added meaning in a space built around student voice, identity and persistence.

Her connection to that work runs through the broader AWC media ecosystem. In a May 15 graduation feature, Barcenas interviewed KAWC host Nick Foley as he prepared to graduate from Arizona Western College and transfer to Arizona State University in Tempe. Together, those projects show Barcenas not only as an award winner, but as a student already practicing the kind of interviewing, design and storytelling skills that can translate into internships, freelance work and jobs in Yuma County’s growing digital and communications landscape.