Fading Mementos

Black Issues in Higher Education, Feb 17, 2000 by Eric St. John

"The people who tend to pick up their yearbooks are seniors," Suggs says.

At schools that also charge for the yearbook in addition to the student activities-fee contribution, there is even less interest.

At Alabama State, Dean says, the yearbook is not paid for with student-activities fees. The university prints 500 copies of The Hornet for its 5,000-student population. The 1998 edition of the yearbook was priced at $30.

Overlooked Benefits

Dean, who worked for the Herff Jones Yearbook Company before coming to Alabama State, believes yearbooks offer something that technology can't.

"The printed copy will last forever. You can lose a CD. You can lose a disc. But it's hard to lose a yearbook," Dean says. "People aren't going to read that kind of information on a computer. They'll look at the pictures, but they won't sit down at the computer and read all that information. But in book form, they will."

And they serve an additional purpose.

"A well-done yearbook [should] have a fantastic student perspective of an institution that can be used by admission officers, athletic coaches and others to promote and sell that institution to incoming freshmen, business partners and the surrounding community," Sullivan says.

"The most immediate benefit the university receives from [a yearbook] is as a public relation tool," Dean adds. "When our recruiters show it, people look at our yearbook and say, `Wow! I didn't know you had all those things at Alabama State.' It provides more information than a brochure."

Additionally, some administrators believe that having students produce a yearbook helps improve their performance in other areas-both on and off campus.

"We're planning on doing a summer workshop where we can bring high school students from all over the state of Alabama," Dean says. "We [want to] do this journalism kind of camp where we teach them yearbook and newspaper production. Then, we can identify who would be interested in doing this kind of thing when they get here.

"Students will get a chance to understand the publication process while they are still in school. They'll learn printing terms like halftones and scanners, so they will become familiar with some bit of technology," he adds. "These type of activities enhance discipline with students. You have to proofread and make sure the copy is correct. It instills pride and gives you the confidence to want to do other things. So, they are wonderful activities for students."

Going the Way of the Dinosaur

Despite the enthusiasm of people like Dean, yearbooks are in decline. At Albany State University, "the students generally vote in the spring [as to] whether they want a yearbook the following year," Stephanie Harris, assistant vice president for student affairs at Albany State, says.

According to Harris, the practice began three or four years ago because "the students were not supporting it and we ended up spending thousands of dollars on books that ended up in the student activities office."

Sullivan says a couple of factors other than money are contributing to the free fall. He notes that the turnover rate on yearbook staffs can sometimes have a devastating effect on a yearbook's continued viability. Combined with the "coverage conundrum" -- his term for the dilemma posed trying to represent every aspect of campus life -- that can prove to be fatal for some yearbooks.