The Mac Weekly

Issue date: 9/21/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Aaron Brown A Macalester student leafs through the 2007 yearbook. Due to a lack of funds, a lack of leadership and a lack of student interest, the yearbook will not be published this year.

Facing a lack of student interest, funding shortfalls, and the absence of consistent leadership, Macalester's yearbook, "The Mac," will no longer publish its annual community record. The yearbook's end follows a two-year attempt to revive the tradition of yearbooks at Macalester.

Armed with a $780 budget from Macalester College Student Government (MCSG), yearbook staff members regrouped last fall to publish a second consecutive yearbook. They encountered financial difficulties and low student interest when the staff published their first edition in more than 10 years, which recapped the 2005-2006 school year.

Most student participation in the yearbook, such as the submission of "mug shots" for each class section, came from seniors and first-years while most others were apathetic, Molly Brookfield '09, a member of the yearbook staff in 2007, said.

"I think freshmen were used to it from high school, and seniors were more nostalgic when they were leaving," Marlene Delgado '09, another yearbook staff member, said.

Many seniors' parents ordered copies or purchased yearbooks at the large sales held on family weekend last fall, Delgado said.

Despite sales to seniors and first-years, overall student interest did not rise substantially from the first edition of "The Mac," when students pre-ordered 200 copies. The low sales numbers meant that the yearbook staff had to request additional funding from MCSG at the end of the 2007 school year to purchase the minimum number of books the publisher required to send the book to press, Vice President for Student Affairs Laurie Hamre said.

The challenges yearbook staff met last school year echoed those of the previous year when, after yearbook production had dropped off in 1994, Deborah Heller '07 and members of the class of 2008 gathered in 2005 in an effort revive the tradition. Before the 1993 and 1994 yearbooks, no Macalester yearbooks had been published in over twenty years, Hamre said.

Continued...

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