Yearbook editor position cut, will be replaced by a committee

The days of yearbook editors scrambling to complete The Record by deadline are over. The position was cut at the KSU fall general meeting on Nov. 14. This year, the yearbook will be created by the newly created yearbook committee, which will also provide a recommendation on The Record’s continuing existence at the end of this school year.
In previous years, the yearbook editor was paid $1,250 for the entire year, and held the second-highest paid union-hired position. The Record began in 1879 as a monthly magazine. In 1951 it began to resemble the type of yearbook we have today.
Davis Carr, last year’s editor for The Record, says it’s “an insane job” for one person.
She believes that, in years past, students who wanted to help with the yearbook were looking to be part of a team — and unfortunately, that wasn’t the way it was set up.
Carr says that the deadlines for the printing company may have also contributed to a lack of interest in The Record over the past few years. The way it has been set up means that the yearbook is finished in August, and comes out in October.
“Just the nature of how the publishing works, it’s already irrelevant. It’s not released at the end of the first year, where there would be a lot of anticipation because it’s the end of the year, everybody’s looking back.”
Carr says losing the yearbook would be a loss for the university.
“The yearbook is a really great opportunity for us to sort of break down those social barriers and really look at the school as a whole,” said Carr. “It’s a really interesting way for King’s to reflect who we are. It’s a way of understanding ourselves as an institution.”
Noah White, student life vice-president, doesn’t want to lose the yearbook either. He says that in 20 years he won’t want to reminisce about King’s over Facebook pictures — he wants a hard-copy yearbook to look at.
“I think the yearbook can be an incredible thing,” he said. “Having a hard copy of this, having things in the archives, keeping things on paper I think is incredibly valuable.”
Carr and White agree that in order for The Record to keep going, something needs to change.
“I’d like to see something that makes it more definitively King’s,” said White.
“If we are going to have a hard copy, I want it to be something students want to see. Or, you know, at least have them be a part of the process that decides what is in the yearbook, because I think that’s what’s most valuable to the union.”