NOTE: This paper is presented as it was originally written, and does not reflect further research into the subject since.

Blaise Paine – HACU-247: Hampshire Zine Library – 12/17/2024

Timeline of Hampshire College Student Newspapers

The Paper People (1971)

Hampshire College’s first student newspaper began publication in February 1971, in the second semester of the school’s operation. Titled The Paper People, it ran until the end of the semester. (Shary and Finger)

Climax (1971-1981)

The second, and longest running paper by far, Climax, began in November 1971 and ran until May 1981, a nearly decade-long streak of more-or-less uninterrupted publication. The paper ran on a rough weekly schedule, reducing to a monthly schedule by the end of its life. Its founding staff consisted of Richard Asinof, Richard Barber, Betsy Dietel, Doug Fleisher, Tom Kizzia, Phil Robertson, and Kim Shaton, (Climax) but quickly expanded to include work from several other reporters. The last issue was published on May 11th, 1981, featuring an article titled “Council gives the breath of life,” detailing that the student government at the time, the Community Council, had offered Climax approximately one fifth of the funds requested by the paper. Climax declined the sum of money, arguing that accepting the funds implied that Climax “were agreeing to their capacity to judge the quality, content, and mode of presentation within the newspaper and thus in turn allowing them to openly and knowingly infringe on our freedom of speech and of the press.” The decision to form a new newspaper for the following fall semester was left up to the Committee on Community Development, a committee of the Community Council. (Climax)

Apostrophe (1981-1984)

Following the end of Climax, the next paper, titled Apostrophe, published its first issue on October 8th, 1981, funded by the Community Council. Apostrophe would run on a biweekly schedule, with its first editor-in-chief being Kathryn J. Baptista. The paper published its last issue on March 9th, 1984, lasting only 2 years and 5 months. No specific cause of its end is indicated in its final issues. (Apostrophe)

Communique (1984-1985)

In Black and White (1985-1986)

Before the semester ended, Communique would be replaced by In Black and White, with Jessica Applestone as its editor-in-chief, starting in circa May 1985. Its first issue detailed the Community Council upholding the decision to withdraw its funding, and suggested Communique may return by acquiring a corporate sponsor, but this did not come to fruition. (In Black and White) In November 1986, the staff of the paper announced it would end publication due to excessive workload and lack of interest. (Shary and Finger)

The Permanent Press (1987-1992)

After the end of In Black and White, the school entered its longest period without a regularly publishing student newspaper since the start of Climax, lasting almost a full year until the start of The Permanent Press on October 9th, 1987. (Name This Paper) The Permanent Press published under the three names before reaching its final name, first Name This Paper, then Nearly Named, then Legal Graffiti after the conclusion of a naming contest. Legal Graffiti was changed to The Permanent Press after backlash about the name. (Shary and Finger) The paper published on a biweekly schedule, with Chris Dick, Michael Dorfman, Mary Ellen Doyle, Stacy Hochheiser, John Keh, and Leah Melnick as its founding editorial board. The Permanent Press published its last issue on February 11th, 1992, volume 5 issue 14 with no clear indication of its ending. (The Permanent Press)

The New Litany (1992)

After the end of The Permanent Press, a paper claiming to be a continuation of the paper, called The New Litany was published for a single semester from circa March 1992 to May 1992, with Joey Boer, Erich Schienke, Morgan Sommer, and Kylen Campbell heading up its short-lived editorial team. (The New Litany)

The Hampshire Examiner (1992-1993)

Meanwhile, The Hampshire Examiner began in the same semester, with Sarah Gay as its editor-in-chief. First published as simply Community Newspaper, the paper’s first publication was initially scheduled for the following semester, but was expedited in reaction to 1992 Cole Science Center Occupation and released on May 7th, 1992, and then continued on a biweekly schedule. (Community Newspaper) In February 1993 the student government voted to make the Examiner an organ of itself, but it is unclear how long the paper continued to run. (Shary and Finger) Literature reviewed for this report continues to cite it only through March 3rd, 1993, and the library’s microfilm holdings transition to cover The Omen thereafter.

The Omen (1993-Present)

The Omen began on January 28, 1993, starting as a “newsmagazine,” under managing editor Stephanie Cole, and continues to run to this day, although its role as a source of campus news is slowly phased out. (The Omen) After this point, the history of student newspapers becomes murky, as the college’s microfilm holdings end in 1994, and A History of Student Activities and Achievements at Hampshire College ends in 2000.

The Phoenix (1993-1996) and The Forward (1997-???)

The Phoenix began on September 9th, 1993, with editor-in-chief Chris Keroack on a weekly schedule (The Phoenix) and published through December 1996, followed by The Forward starting a year later and continuing through at least 2000. (Shary and Finger)

Potential Post-2000 Papers

Hampshire College Intranet postings and a dormant WordPress site suggest a resurrection of Climax as early as 2006 and potentially continuing through 2014, but aside from that, there are very few indicators of any other newspapers after 2000.

State of the Archive

All of the above listed publications are on microfilm in the library’s holdings, documented  except for The Paper People, The Forward, and the latter part of The Phoenix’s run. A History of Student Activities and Achievements at Hampshire College suggests that the original paper copies of the papers are in the college archives, and those physical archives may contain The Paper People, The Forward, and more of The Phoenix, as well as potentially additional papers that existed after the period captured on microfilm. Access to the archives would grant a much clearer picture of the history of Hampshire College’s student publications, but the archives are currently inaccessible following the departure of the college’s last archivist, Shaun Trujillo. According to library director Rachel Beckwith, the library is not able to hire a new archivist until the end of 2024 fiscal year at the very earliest, due to budget cuts incurred for the 2024 fiscal year.

The Omen is a unique situation: while some of the magazine is covered on microfilm, nearly its entire run is covered in digitizations hosted on the Internet Archive, outside of the purview of the library or college archives. There is a small span that is not digitized: Volume 1, Issue 4 through Volume 4, Issue 4. Much of that span, up to Volume 3, Issue 10, is covered on microfilm.

The microfilm holdings are difficult to navigate. They consist of 5 reels of microfilm, with each sequential issue back to back, changing between papers on the same reel. Some reproductions suffer from poor contrast, making them difficult to read. This issue particularly affects certain spans of The Permanent Press. Additionally, all of the newspapers show up in finding aids as a single publication that went through several name changes, rather than multiple separate publications.

Research Process

My initial research project was tracking the throughlines of student discontent at Hampshire College through time via zines produced by its students, aiming to identify long standing issues. Unfortunately, when looking through the zine collection, I found that very few of its holdings were about Hampshire College, and the majority of those that were, are the product of Hamp Rise Up! during the 2019 financial crisis. While undoubtedly valuable historical artifacts, they do little to establish a longitudinal perspective on the college’s issues. Furthermore, some of the zines I located in LibraryThing I was unable to find in the actual physical collection.

From there, I shifted into thinking about following student discontent with a different set of primary sources: student newspapers, which would almost certainly cover issues raised by students. But as it turned out, merely locating and getting access to these materials was a large enough topic by itself that I haven’t gotten to that original question in this paper, and will leave that for future research (see Further Research Threads)

One significant obstacle I encountered was that creating personal copies of research materials wasn’t possible. For the class’s main research focus, the zine collection, scans could be made fairly trivially. But for the newspapers, my primary sources were exclusively accessible on microfilm. The microfilm scanner on the 2nd floor of the library works well enough to view the material, but I found the printer attached to it very difficult to operate, and was unable to make any copies of any material to take home and reference.

Literature Review

The most valuable resource in writing this paper was A History of Student Activities and Achievements at Hampshire College, compiled between 1990 and 2000 by Tim Shary and Sarah Finger. A few of the notable events in the history of Hampshire student newspapers are recorded in this history, but more useful was the citations to different papers throughout time. And instrumental to the success of my research here was the note that the “The student newspapers indexed here are available in the library on microfilm,” which led me to peruse through the microfilm cabinet I had seen when leaving class and see if it was still in there, rather than in the archives. Without A History, I wouldn’t have been able to do this research.

My primary sources were the microfilm reproductions of Hampshire student newspapers spanning from 1971 through 1997. This unfortunately leaves the entire span of 1998-present outside of the corpus I had access to, a period of time as large as what I did have access to.

Another resource was simply searching the Intranet for mentions of newspapers, which resulted in the discovery of at least one (possibly two!) revivals of Climax in the 2000s and early 2010s.

Further Research Threads

Using this review of Hampshire’s student newspapers as a foundation, there are many opportunities for further research.

Firstly, the original goal of identifying consistent issues at Hampshire College throughout its history is much more attainable now that these resources have been located. One can start to see some major patterns almost immediately: the treatment of BIPOC students and communities, the quality of Dining Commons/SAGA food, lack of practice space for musicians, scandals in student government, housing assignments systems, etc.

Another potential subject of research is “Why Can’t Hampshire Manage To Keep A Student Newspaper Running?” which is a question I have particular interest in as someone who is trying to run and maintain a new student newspaper. I have a few hunches! This would likely involve pulling in other sources like Community Council records, since newspapers rarely document their own demise, and their successors frequently pass off that information as something everyone in their contemporary audience already knows.

Researching the kinds of content that the different papers shared across time could also lend greater insight into what the student body values and has valued in the past, and inform the work of student newspapers headed into the future.

Bibliography

Shary, Tim, and Sarah Finger. A History of Student Activities and Achievements at Hampshire College. https://www.hampshire.edu/library/archives-and-special-collections/history-student-activities-and-achievements-hampshire.

Climax. Climax, vol. 1, no. 1, 18 Nov. 1971.

Climax. Climax, vol. 12, no. 4, 11 May 1981.

Apostrophe. Apostrophe, vol. 1, no. 1, 8 Oct. 1981.

Apostrophe. Apostrophe, vol. 6, no. 2, 9 Mar. 1984.

Communique. Communique, vol. 1, no. 1, 20 Sept. 1984.

Communique. Communique, vol. 1, no. 5, p. 12.

Communique. Communique, vol. 1, no. 6, 1984.

In Black and White. In Black and White, vol. 1, no. 1, 1985.

Name This Paper. Name This Paper, vol. 1, no. 1, 9 Oct. 1987.

The Permanent Press. The Permanent Press, vol. 5, no. 14, 11 Feb. 1992.

The New Litany. The New Litany, vol. 1, no. 1, 1992.

Community Newspaper. Community Newspaper, vol. 1, no. 14, 7 May 1992.

The Hampshire Examiner. The Hampshire Examiner, vol. 3, no. 2, 3 Mar. 1993.

The Omen. The Omen, vol. 1, no. 1, 28 Jan. 1993.

The Phoenix. The Phoenix, vol. 1, no. 1, 9 Sept. 1993.