2015-2016 was a great year for the Collegian. We expanded, adding an extra page of Sports and an extra page of City News. We saw increased readership in the town of Hillsdale. We gained national attention when we broke the news story of being left off the Department of Education’s College Scorecard. We were named best college weekly in the state by the Michigan Press Association.
In short, the Collegian had a great year, and that’s largely thanks to the support of you — our readers. Roughly 300 of you responded to the Student Federation & Journalism Publications Survey released a few weeks ago. According to the results, 51 percent of students read the Collegian every week and 76 percent view the Collegian favorably overall. Many of you responded with particular comments, telling us what you loved: the Opinions section, the Sports page, Campus Chic. For those of us who work to put the paper together each week, this is a success.
But perhaps the most rewarding results of the survey were the many comments that said you feel more connected to the Hillsdale College community as a result of the Collegian. One of the main reasons our newspaper exists is to foster campus community and bring our readers together in conversation. If our readers feel more connected to that community because of the Collegian, it means the paper is doing its job.
So thank you to those of you who replied and to all of you who continue to support the Collegian by picking it up and reading it each week. But even as you support the Collegian, don’t forget about our other official campus publications: The Tower Light and the Winona yearbook. (And the Hillsdale Forum, an unofficial publication.)
While they don’t reach the same numbers that the Collegian does, these publications similarly exist to serve our campus community and to bring students together. If you usually don’t pick up the Tower Light, or take the time to look through the Winona, why not make this semester the semester you give it a try?
