Student Publications

Abstract

As student organizations continued to flourish in the 1880s and 1890s, they needed ways to promote their activities and recruit new members. Equally important was a desire for students to comment on their lives and their perceptions of the university experience. This need for discourse among the student body led to the emergence of several types of student publications. Some recorded the events of student life and their activities, like athletic competitions or social gatherings. Others were vehicles for students to publish their writings, both fiction andnonfìctìon, to be shared with their classmates. Still others were intended as a means for talking with administrators and alumni before formal student government and alumni associations were formed. Because there were so many different types of student publications during the Victorian Era, some colleges or universities could have one or more publications. Each of these publications was intended for all students to read, though not all were written or edited by coeducational staffs.