Several of you have seen the link to the Borah Senator newspaper archives that was posted by Philip Willeford to the Borah Class of 1977 Facebook group (Thanks, Phil!). It has been fun going through some of the old issues to bring back some of those memories we may have forgotten.
After the link appeared, I checked out the hosting site because it was claiming copyright for the scanned pages. Since I worked on the Senator during our time at Borah and wrote some of those stories that appeared in the Senator, I felt an obligation to ask the current faculty advisor what arrangements had been made with this archiving site. Michelle Harmon (Borah class of 1979), the faculty advisor, was very surprised to learn that the archivists were claiming copyright. She is pursuing this issue with the company.
In talking with Michelle, I found out that not all of the Senator editions during our time there have been scanned. She is letting us borrow the 1975 - 1977 archives from Borah (which are "yellowing" from the years) to do our own scanning, so over the next few months, we will create a complete archive from our time at Borah on this class site.
While meeting with her on campus at Borah, she took me on a tour of the revised newspaper office, where the paste-up table has been replaced with a computer lab and a wall was removed to add enough space for more than one person to walk through at a time. Yay!
She is working very hard to encourage new students to join the program and provide them opportunities to attend journalism conferences and enter writing contests. Some students at Borah have very limited family income, so if only the students that have money can afford to attend conferences and enter writing contests, it would create a divide of "haves" and "have nots" between students. Michelle has decided to enter the most deserving writing submissions and somehow try to find money to pay the entry fees. About $350 each year is spent on competitions.
What I didn't know (and frankly, unsure how they came to this conclusion), is that the Department of Education in Idaho has classified the journalism program as a "professional and technical" class, like a shop class, and provides very minimal funding for the publishing of newspaper editions each month, due to the smaller enrollment numbers. It costs $3000 to $4000 per year to publish the Borah Senator and borahsenator.com, the online version. Students are constantly selling ads to companies in order to be able to publish. However, the Borah Senator newspaper is about to shut down, due to lack of funding. The department has enough money for one more issue and that's it.
If you would like to help continue the Borah Senator legacy for the Class of 2015 and other fellow Borah Lions who are yet to come, here's how to help:
After the link appeared, I checked out the hosting site because it was claiming copyright for the scanned pages. Since I worked on the Senator during our time at Borah and wrote some of those stories that appeared in the Senator, I felt an obligation to ask the current faculty advisor what arrangements had been made with this archiving site. Michelle Harmon (Borah class of 1979), the faculty advisor, was very surprised to learn that the archivists were claiming copyright. She is pursuing this issue with the company.
In talking with Michelle, I found out that not all of the Senator editions during our time there have been scanned. She is letting us borrow the 1975 - 1977 archives from Borah (which are "yellowing" from the years) to do our own scanning, so over the next few months, we will create a complete archive from our time at Borah on this class site.
While meeting with her on campus at Borah, she took me on a tour of the revised newspaper office, where the paste-up table has been replaced with a computer lab and a wall was removed to add enough space for more than one person to walk through at a time. Yay!
She is working very hard to encourage new students to join the program and provide them opportunities to attend journalism conferences and enter writing contests. Some students at Borah have very limited family income, so if only the students that have money can afford to attend conferences and enter writing contests, it would create a divide of "haves" and "have nots" between students. Michelle has decided to enter the most deserving writing submissions and somehow try to find money to pay the entry fees. About $350 each year is spent on competitions.
What I didn't know (and frankly, unsure how they came to this conclusion), is that the Department of Education in Idaho has classified the journalism program as a "professional and technical" class, like a shop class, and provides very minimal funding for the publishing of newspaper editions each month, due to the smaller enrollment numbers. It costs $3000 to $4000 per year to publish the Borah Senator and borahsenator.com, the online version. Students are constantly selling ads to companies in order to be able to publish. However, the Borah Senator newspaper is about to shut down, due to lack of funding. The department has enough money for one more issue and that's it.
If you would like to help continue the Borah Senator legacy for the Class of 2015 and other fellow Borah Lions who are yet to come, here's how to help:
- The Boise School District Education Foundation allows for the donation to specific classrooms through their "Thank-A-Teacher" program, AND the donations are tax deductible! You can check out the program information and find specific donation instructions here: http://boiseschoolsfoundation.com/thank-a-teacher
- If you own a business and would like to advertise in the Borah Senator, contact Michelle Harmon and she will route you to the advertising manager for the newspaper.
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