Possible Return of College Readership Program
SGA and students in debate about which paper or papers to bring back to campus
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: News
By Alex Tate
Rotunda Reporter
At the SGA meeting on Tues., Jan. 19, 2010, Randy Jones, a New York Times representative came to try and bring back the Collegiate Readership Program to Longwood University. The Collegiate Readership Program, made up of The New York Times and USA Today, is a university program to build readership habits among college students.
SGA Senator Brian Mandeville is spearheading this endeavor to bring back the readership program. Mandeville said, "…Randy was here to speak with a couple of the professors who use the [news] papers in their classrooms and I met with him because I have been working for him for a couple of years and have never actually met the guy. I told him that there was an SGA meeting that was occurring right then, so we rushed over [to Lankford Student Union] and they let him speak, and he just kind of talked about some of the benefits from the program that maybe we weren't aware of."
SGA President Cameron Patterson said, "Although the representative was unable to go into specific detail, he did say that the New York Times could offer the following services if a specific number of newspapers were purchased for the campus. Those services include [speakers, help with planning programs on campus, etc]." If the SGA were to bring the program back, then Longwood would have to have at least 200 papers for the program to exist. Mandeville explained some of the services could include helping fund certain events, such as ones that relate to current events or things that relate to the paper in general. An example is some schools have a once-per-week event where one school does a breakfast with The New York Times, where faculty and students gather in the dining hall to talk about current events and discuss politics in general. Other services can also include being able to bring journalists and people who work for the paper to speak on campus.
"For me," said Mandeville, "it is a passion that I personally have in something that I am interested in current events. I feel that it is just important if you are going to try to have a higher education then I think you should become more involved as far as… your citizen ship within your country and with the world in general. And unless you really have the desire to focus on these things it is hard to really have a functioning democracy."
Rotunda Reporter
At the SGA meeting on Tues., Jan. 19, 2010, Randy Jones, a New York Times representative came to try and bring back the Collegiate Readership Program to Longwood University. The Collegiate Readership Program, made up of The New York Times and USA Today, is a university program to build readership habits among college students.
SGA Senator Brian Mandeville is spearheading this endeavor to bring back the readership program. Mandeville said, "…Randy was here to speak with a couple of the professors who use the [news] papers in their classrooms and I met with him because I have been working for him for a couple of years and have never actually met the guy. I told him that there was an SGA meeting that was occurring right then, so we rushed over [to Lankford Student Union] and they let him speak, and he just kind of talked about some of the benefits from the program that maybe we weren't aware of."
SGA President Cameron Patterson said, "Although the representative was unable to go into specific detail, he did say that the New York Times could offer the following services if a specific number of newspapers were purchased for the campus. Those services include [speakers, help with planning programs on campus, etc]." If the SGA were to bring the program back, then Longwood would have to have at least 200 papers for the program to exist. Mandeville explained some of the services could include helping fund certain events, such as ones that relate to current events or things that relate to the paper in general. An example is some schools have a once-per-week event where one school does a breakfast with The New York Times, where faculty and students gather in the dining hall to talk about current events and discuss politics in general. Other services can also include being able to bring journalists and people who work for the paper to speak on campus.
"For me," said Mandeville, "it is a passion that I personally have in something that I am interested in current events. I feel that it is just important if you are going to try to have a higher education then I think you should become more involved as far as… your citizen ship within your country and with the world in general. And unless you really have the desire to focus on these things it is hard to really have a functioning democracy."
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