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Monday, January 28, 2019
Volume 100 Issue 1
COLLEGIAN CELEBRATES CENTENNIAL VOLUME
Madison Lyda Managing Editor @maddilinee
This semester, the “Collegian” staff celebrates the newspaper’s centennial volume, eager to document another semester through ethics-driven, socially conscious student journalism. “The Cameron Collegian” is the oldest living record of Cameron University. In 1927, Cameron University President John L. Coffey approved the founding of “The Cameron Collegian” as a student
publication – for the students, by the students. Issue to issue, students published poetry, personal letters, achievements, local information such as movie times and where to go in town on a Saturday night. The publication told the stories of student life and state controversy over the course of the last 92 years, documenting every detail. The chair of the Communication, English and Foreign Languages department, Dr. Christopher Keller was the Managing Editor for “The Cameron Collegian” in 1995 and believes that “The Cameron Collegian” publication slows down time, captures moments and history through student driven freedom of speech. “Outside of the books that are published about Cameron, the newspaper is the only window into what has happened at this university for the past 100 years,” Keller said. “It’s hard for me to state how critical a student-led product like this is to the health of the university just through freedom of speech
event, the students act independently in their pursuits to develop content. The student works are then passed down to the editor staff for the publication where content newspaper which is free from oversight is then revised and worked into personalized layout and for content is profound,” design for weekly pages. the Keller said. “The fact that For 92 years, student civil rights ours has been in constant journalists have spent hours publication since the early movement each week churning content to marches for part of the twentieth and developing the pages century is bonkers, we fair education, that have come to make student journalists have a story tradition of good, solid journalism. The up the nearly thousand covered national and contribution is that this has issues and 100 volumes of state tragedies ranging the Cameron Collegian from 9/11 to the Oklahoma been a student run, student publication. led, student produced, City bombing. and Student journalists work student content driven The publication has people to capture the essence of product which reports on remained a long-standing paying time and history on campus. a community that nobody public record of local, attention to Whether the story be else is going to report on. It’s the small details campus and statewide an interview with a student Cameron. It’s a special place history, written, published that may go or reflection on the past, to us.” and funded by Cameron unnoticed.” student journalists seek the The staff of “The “The Cameron students from every truth and report it. department around campus Cameron Collegian” acts Collegian” has “This person went From the very beginning, as an independent vessel of served the university to deliver a paper at a communication. Drafting during some of the most the campus newspaper conference, or we won this individual content and publication has been basketball game, or this producing weekly content professor won this award for the publication, the and wrote a book or did advisor of the publication this thing,” Keller said, does not choose or reject taking a moment to gather topics of content for each his words. “All these lifecycle. All these life-changing changing incidents that The advisor provides incidents that occur in this occur in this microcosm advice and acts as a mentor that is Cameron, nobody microcosm that is to developing journalists, would know about it if Cameron, nobody would offering constructive we weren’t reporting criticism and bouts of know about it if we weren’t knowledge to help students on it. We add reporting on it. structure to the hone their own craft. We add structure to the chaos that exists.” Student journalists chaos that exists. report on events and news that take place on campus. Dr. Christopher Keller Writing their own Chair of the Department of Communication, stories, conducting their English and Foreign Languages own interviews, using photography to capture each and every historic moments on campus by capturing every detail through lens and voice. Members of the “Collegian” staff were on the scene when Cameron made the transition from a small state high school to an accredited university. “Collegian” student journalists documented social movements ranging from
entirely led and organized yearly by a diverse group of student journalists. “The idea that you can have a student
The graphic is a product of “The Cameron Collegian”, published in Volume I, Issue 10 on Nov. 10, 1927. Graphic by Madison Lyda
What’s inside
Campus hosts memorial for Columbus
Late era capitalism on a silver platter
Sabrina Stedman spills the tee
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