By Morgan Jacobus, Editor in Chief
Cover of the End of Year Showcase Issue 2020-21
Great news: we created and published a PRINT ISSUE!
When I stepped into my role as EIC, this was one of my main goals. As I talked with our adviser and various faculty, they all communicated in some way that they missed having a print issue of the Highlander. After all, there hasn’t been one since December of 2016, over four years ago. Looking into the Highlander archives, I read their final print issue. From what I gathered, it appeared that their decision stemmed from a feeling that people weren’t reading print anymore. Ironically to me, our goals are actually the same. In the article announcing the transition to digital, it mentioned, “Our biggest goal this academic year for The Highlander was visibility; we want to be seen and heard by all of campus,” wrote their Lead Associate Editor at the time, Natalia Zreliak.
After all, what more does a publication want than to be seen? However, there is one main way in which we deviate: I see print as a way to increase visibility rather than a hindrance to it. Though I appreciate the prominence and necessity of an online presence, I think there is something about print that just can’t be replicated online. You can see people carrying it, you can find it across campus, and for those of us that created it, we get to hold our work in our hands.
We will still be a primarily online publication, but our goal is to have special print issues that come out about once a semester, to have the best of both worlds. The way I see it, there isn’t a need to have to choose between print and online, we can do both, and in doing so we will hopefully increase our presence and recognizability on campus.
We conducted the first distribution of our first ever print End of Year Issue, celebrating the work we have done thus far in the 2020-21 academic year. Did you miss it? No worries! We will have plenty of copies that can be found in the major buildings across campus, such as the library, the fitness and wellness Center, Clarke Hall, Main Hall, Claver, and even in the science building. Or, in other exciting news, we also made an Issuu account, so you can read our print issue in all its glory online, just go to this link: Highlander End of Year Issue 2020-21 by ruhighlander - issuu
Stay tuned to see what print issue we are going to do next!