1914 was a big year for the University of Richmond. The school moved from its downtown location to the current campus, Westhampton College was founded and in November, students published the first issue of The Collegian, making the university's weekly, student-run newspaper nearly 99 years old.
Steve Nash, the senior research scholar and professor in the journalism department, has shared a role as a faculty adviser for The Collegian with Michael Spear, the department chair, since the 1980s.
Nash said when he had arrived at Richmond there had been no type writers in the journalism department. The process of writing news stories was laborious and the paper was usually a maximum of eight pages, he said, exemplifying how much the newspaper has expanded and evolved in the last three decades.
There have been other means of acquiring news about campus other than the newspaper. There have been yearbooks and a radio station, but The Collegian has remained unique. "The longevity of the student newspaper says a lot," he said. "Students, faculty and administrators are really enduringly interested in this form of finding out what in the world is going on. Students' work in the newspaper has been a reflection of what was on the minds of everyone in the campus community, and also all of their achievements. It's the only newspaper that gives a damn about the University of Richmond."
Nash said The Collegian had contributed to the history of the university by uncovering scandals and often providing superb coverage of campus cultural changes and various controversies. "It has provided a forum for discussion on important matters," Nash said. "So it has helped our thinking evolve."
The Collegian has published more than 128,000 articles in more than 2,500 issues, both in print and online. As we look forward to our centennial, we want to look back at the past hundred years of history--both of the university and of The Collegian. In the first issue of each month leading up to November 2014, we will be revisiting a decade from The Collegian's archives. To begin this commemoration, we want to take you back to a time when campus traditions were just beginning, chicken pox threatened campus and a new building had just opened for the basketball team to practice in. We begin with 1914-1924.
Contact reporter Lauren Shute at lauren.shute@richmond.edu
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