EDITORIAL: `CAMPANILE'

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Is it time to end an 80-year tradition?

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That is the most important question on the minds of the people who put together the Campanile . A major trend has swept the country at the university level -- yearbooks are disappearing off the face of the earth. Tulane University is the most recent and prominent university to stop publication of its yearbook for financial and staffing reasons. Both of these problems hit very close to home. While the Campanile has dodged the financial bullet for the time being, the staffing problem still looms. The 1996 yearbook will be the 80th year for the Rice Campanile , and I'm sure as hell wasn't going to let the yearbook die on such an anniversary, but the important question is:

Do you want a yearbook?

At the New Orleans College Media Advisers Convention last year, I sat and listened to editors from across the country gripe about no staff, no money and no interest in the yearbook from the student body. While I can surely relate to these problems with an on-paper debt of $15,000, five core staff members and over 300 unclaimed 1994 Campanile 's stacked in the office, I started to wonder what needed to change about the book in order to make things better and keep the 'Nile tradition alive while not ending up in as terrible a predicament as other universities. Getting rid of the debt and being able to pay staff members would surely solve some of the staffing problems, but that would require at least one more year. Mission accomplished and failed. The debt is gone, staff members will be paid in the future, but I failed in getting a successor for the Campanile editorship, which posed a bigger threat to the book than the debt. In terms of more interest in the book, I thought about mug shots (yes, those cheesy pictures taken once a year of just your head and shoulders). When I proposed the idea to a handful of students, it was promptly thrown back in my face as uncharacteristic of Rice and not a tradition (FYI: the Campanile printed mug shots from 1916-1972 when the tradition died out and was replaced 16 years later with a Picture Yourself-style event). Other ideas that came to mind were a more effective manner of distribution, maybe through college secretaries, faculty department shots (a failed venture this year), an alumni fund and various other things that could be expounded upon for a very long time.

But the important question, if the answer to the first two questions is yes, is:

What type of yearbook do you want?

After deciding if you want a yearbook at Rice and what type of yearbook you want, there immediately arises another question:

Are you up to the challenge?

I challenge all of you out there who have some yearbook experience, and all of you who don't, to dedicate a little bit of your time to producing a book which has consistently been praised across the country as having the best photographic images of any collegiate yearbook. I challenge you to change the yearbook to a format that best suits the student body. I challenge you to save an 80-year tradition that stands as a historical record of this university. You may notice pictures from the 'Nile in the Sallyport, histories of Rice and any number of other publications. There is nothing like a yearbook in this world, but the real question is:

Do you want a yearbook?

-- Charles Klein, 1995 Campanile Editor

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 8, 1995 issue.

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