2008 Woodie Awards
Newspaper Delivery Program Resumes
Sarah Culp
Issue date: 12/10/03 Section: News
Beginning next semester, Goucher students will have access to four different free daily newspapers, sponsored by the Goucher Student Government Association.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and the Baltimore Sun will be available on racks in Stimson and Pearlstone from Monday through Friday. The Baltimore Sun will also be available on Saturday and Sunday.
"There was a lot of demand for it from the students," says Josh Stober '06, SGA president. "People were disappointed when they left last year, after the trial run, so it's been one of my goals and one of the executive board's goals to bring [the newspapers] back on campus."
The SGA has been providing free issues of the Baltimore Sun to students on an irregular basis for the past several years, but February of 2003 was the first time other newspapers were available, as part of a month-long pilot program executed at no charge by the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program to gauge student interest. According to Beth Burke, a USA Today spokesperson who visited the SGA in October, 38% of the approximately 900 Goucher students to whom papers were available picked up a newspaper each day in February. Burke said that the student interest was unusually high at Goucher, and that the average number of students at most schools who took a paper was 20% to 25%.
In the study (which was limited to three newspapers and did not include the Washington Post), approximately 140 issues of The New York Times, 78 issues of the Baltimore Sun, and 72 issues of USA Today were taken each day. Next semester's subscription plan, which the SGA adopted following surveys of dorm residents by their house representatives, allows for 82 issues of the Times, 50 issues of the Sun, 50 issues of the Post, and 36 issues of USA Today to be delivered daily. USA Today, the Times, and the Post will be ordered through the USA Today program at a cost of about $4,000 for the semester, while the Sun is being bought through its own college program for $750; both are being paid for by the SGA executive board's discretionary fund.
According to Stober, the number of each newspaper ordered may be re-evaluated after a semester if demand is significantly higher or lower than expected. "We started off with a middle-level program, just to see how many are being taken. If this ends up being a good-size program, we'll probably just continue it at this level," he said. "But if it's really popular, the other thing might be that departments might get involved, and want to fund having more papers on campus."
When asked how the free newspapers benefit the Goucher community, Stober responded, "I personally think it's really important that students have a source to be informed by. One of the reasons we went for having four newspapers was that it's important to have national newspapers like the Post and the Times but it's also really important to know what's happening in Baltimore, where we live."
He added one more reason to appreciate the local news: "A lot of the times, Goucher students are in the Sun for various things, so it's nice for them to be able to just pick up a free paper the day they're in it."
The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and the Baltimore Sun will be available on racks in Stimson and Pearlstone from Monday through Friday. The Baltimore Sun will also be available on Saturday and Sunday.
"There was a lot of demand for it from the students," says Josh Stober '06, SGA president. "People were disappointed when they left last year, after the trial run, so it's been one of my goals and one of the executive board's goals to bring [the newspapers] back on campus."
The SGA has been providing free issues of the Baltimore Sun to students on an irregular basis for the past several years, but February of 2003 was the first time other newspapers were available, as part of a month-long pilot program executed at no charge by the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program to gauge student interest. According to Beth Burke, a USA Today spokesperson who visited the SGA in October, 38% of the approximately 900 Goucher students to whom papers were available picked up a newspaper each day in February. Burke said that the student interest was unusually high at Goucher, and that the average number of students at most schools who took a paper was 20% to 25%.
In the study (which was limited to three newspapers and did not include the Washington Post), approximately 140 issues of The New York Times, 78 issues of the Baltimore Sun, and 72 issues of USA Today were taken each day. Next semester's subscription plan, which the SGA adopted following surveys of dorm residents by their house representatives, allows for 82 issues of the Times, 50 issues of the Sun, 50 issues of the Post, and 36 issues of USA Today to be delivered daily. USA Today, the Times, and the Post will be ordered through the USA Today program at a cost of about $4,000 for the semester, while the Sun is being bought through its own college program for $750; both are being paid for by the SGA executive board's discretionary fund.
According to Stober, the number of each newspaper ordered may be re-evaluated after a semester if demand is significantly higher or lower than expected. "We started off with a middle-level program, just to see how many are being taken. If this ends up being a good-size program, we'll probably just continue it at this level," he said. "But if it's really popular, the other thing might be that departments might get involved, and want to fund having more papers on campus."
When asked how the free newspapers benefit the Goucher community, Stober responded, "I personally think it's really important that students have a source to be informed by. One of the reasons we went for having four newspapers was that it's important to have national newspapers like the Post and the Times but it's also really important to know what's happening in Baltimore, where we live."
He added one more reason to appreciate the local news: "A lot of the times, Goucher students are in the Sun for various things, so it's nice for them to be able to just pick up a free paper the day they're in it."