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January 24, 2001: President's Page
One of our goals as a
University is to encourage student activities that promote learning
and personal growth outside the classroom. Every year some 200 student
groups sign up with the Office of Undergraduate Students as official
student organizations--and some of them focus directly on promoting
the exchange of ideas. Several of the most vibrant of these organizations
are new student publications. I would like to describe three fairly
recent publications, each of which, in its own way, has brought
a distinctive new dimension to campus life. One such publication
grew out of an existing student organization, CommonSense. Jeff
Wolf ‘02, a philosophy major, started the organization last
year, taking the name from Thomas Paine’s well known pamphlet.
His intention was to bring together students who wanted to explore
a variety of topics--political, philosophical, religious, and
scientific--from a humanist perspective. The students’
desire to communicate their views more widely through a newsletter
marks a progression often seen in the life of an organization; how
broadly they decided to reach out marks a significant departure
from other student groups. The students made their journal, CommonSense,
an intercollegiate enterprise. A glance at the online masthead proves
their success: Vincent Lloyd ’03 is editor, but a founding
editor is a Cornell University senior; the copy editor is from Colorado
State University; the business manager is from the University of
Victoria; contributors include graduate students from here and elsewhere.
Jeff found the challenge of starting a multi-campus-based publication
appealing, especially since the “payoff” included a chance
to bring to Princeton fresh, diverse perspectives, and a chance
to continue discussion of intriguing academic issues outside the
classroom. [The journal can be found on the Web at www.princeton.edu/~comsense/journal.html.] The Daily Princetonian
has been in business for almost 125 years, but this fall it started
publishing a new weekly magazine in addition to the daily newspaper.
The Prince Magazine demonstrates a commitment by the newspaper’s
current staff, under editor-in-chief Richard Just ’01, to step
back from daily news events to explore important University issues
in a more extended format. This commitment is also reflected in
the newspaper which recently ran a ten-part series on race at Princeton.
The magazine provides an additional forum for longer thought pieces
that analyze campus trends. For example, a recent edition featured
an article on women on campus and why relatively low numbers of
women students run for established political office (for instance,
the Undergraduate Student Government) while a relatively high number
join and take charge of organizations that allow for leadership
in smaller groups that depend more on frequent person-to-person
contact (for example, the Student Volunteers Council or Resident
Advisors). [The Web version of the magazine can be found at www.princemag.com.] Another publication begun
in the past two years strives to bring together students from across
the boundaries that separate particular academic disciplines. The
journal, innovation (with a lower-case “i”), was the brainchild
of Yorell Mañón-Matos ’00, a molecular biology
major, now in medical school at Dartmouth. As he describes the genesis
of his idea, Yorell recognized the enormous talent in science and
engineering on campus and wanted to expose more students to research
taking place at the frontiers of knowledge. The magazine involves
students from engineering and the natural sciences as well as from
economics, art and archaeology, and the history of science. Each
issue revolves around a central theme, such as conservation technology.
Innovation extends to the management style that the students have
adopted for the magazine. They encourage members to try out their
skills in a variety of areas; they emphasize teamwork over top-down
leadership; they pair up students from different disciplines to
cover a story. For example, Craig Cornelius
‘01, a history of science major with a self-declared passion
for space exploration, collaborated with Jared Jensen ’03 from
mechanical and aerospace engineering to write an article on micropropulsion. With free time a precious
commodity and with a large number and variety of extracurricular
activities to choose from, attracting student interest in a new
magazine is a challenge. The current editor, Carl Riccadonna ’01,
and publisher, Derek Djeu ’01, of innovation readily admit
that a charismatic leader is a help. Derek describes how Yorell
pursued students whom he thought “should” have an interest
in the journal and convinced them to participate. Yorell claims
he sought out risk-takers. His colleagues admit that the venture
stretches their abilities, but they value the effort because it
is a challenge and because it is a student-driven enterprise. Yorell
gives Princeton credit for creating an environment that nourishes
student organizations--and innovations. Students have access
to significant resources: University departments donate funds to
offset production costs; the Office of Undergraduate Students offers
administrative support; faculty provide advice and guidance. Above
and beyond these resources is the community of talented Princeton
students on which to draw for contributors and readers. When any of these students describe what motivates them to put in the time and effort to start a publication, what becomes immediately apparent is their desire to communicate to other students their own passionate interest in a topic. As they create and manage these activities, the students become educators, and our community is the richer for their efforts.
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New
Student Publications
