VCU yearbooks continue tradition

Adrienne Bowers

Contributing Writer

In a time when other universities are ending creating yearbooks because of the emergence of social networking sites, students at VCU say they are not afraid of a little competition.

With a $26, 000 budget provided by the MCV Student Government Association and strong alumni support, Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Witten and her 15-member staff distribute 1,000 free yearbooks each year on a first-come first-serve basis.

“Facebook, Twitter and other (sites) are all the rage for social networking and catching up with long lost friends. However, these sites show you where people are now,” said Witten. “The yearbook is for seeing how everyone was at that point in history.”

Britt Watwood, an online teaching specialist from the Center of Teaching Excellence on the Monroe Park Campus, supports printing yearbooks despite advances in social media. His concern is that yearbooks may have a harder time gaining support because many students are creating their own digital multimedia presentations to remember their college experience, rather than relying heavily on yearbooks.

“As things change, who knows if we’ve still be able to go back and access that information again,” said Watwood. “I wrote my master’s thesis on a 5-inch-disc and I can’t read it now because technology has changed so much.”

Watwood said in order for yearbooks to keep up with technology it must combine tradition with new pieces of social media that people enjoy, such as audio or video capabilities.

“While I do use social media, I still think it’s a place for the good old thing that gets looked at for 20 years and put on the shelf,” said Watwood. “I’m not sure if social media has that same old longevity.”

With the popularity of the yearbook on the MCV campus, students like Brenda Brown say they hope to see a yearbook established on the Monroe Park Campus where she attends classes. Brown, a mass communications major, believes yearbooks tell a story and provide a timeline that will help students remember experiences in a positive way. Instead of having individual yearbooks for each field of study, Brown said she believes one yearbook could satisfy the needs of students at VCU.

“If you have the book set up by schools within the university then everyone can see each school’s student, faculty and professor relationships, and thus their stories and connections to each other,” Brown said. “Then you have the entire book to see how the university as a whole has that experience.”

Working Together is the theme for the 2010 edition of the yearbook called “X-Ray.” It will showcase MCV’s medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing and allied health departments with 15 pages per student organization filled with photos highlighting each group.

Students can expect to see memories from campus events included in the yearbook, such as the Back to School Social, Mix and Mingle, Halloween party and MCV Campus Dance at the Jefferson Hotel. Also, a letter from the class president of each department will be featured, along with portraits of each graduate.

“This year we tried to have more candid pictures of people in action because people appreciate that more,” Witten said. “ ‘X-Ray’ has been around for 100 years and it’s kinda expected. MCV is a smaller campus and the fact that it’s free helps.”

With the popularity of the yearbook on the MCV campus, students like Brenda Brown say they hope to see a yearbook established on the Monroe Park Campus where she attends classes. Brown, a mass communications major, believes yearbooks tell a story and provide a timeline that will help students remember experiences in a positive way.

Instead of having individual yearbooks for each field of study, Brown said she believes one yearbook could satisfy the needs of students at VCU.

“If you have the book set up by schools within the university then everyone can see each school’s student, faculty and professor relationships, and thus their stories and connections to each other,” Brown said. “Then you have the entire book to see how the university as a whole has that experience.”

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the University of Virginia, Old Dominion University, Perdue University and Mississippi State University have discontinued their yearbooks because of competition with social media. Colleges like VCU, who are continuing to print yearbooks, include Hampton University, Virginia Tech, James Madison University and Virginia Wesleyan College.