Newspapers have gone the way of the DoDo bird, and so too have College Newspapers. There was a time when writing for the College Newspaper was an admirable thing to do — a stepping stone into a career in journalism. And maybe it still is.
College of Staten Island Student Newspaper
For two years in the early 1980’s I was the Editor in Chief of The College Voice — the College of Staten Island’s official school newspaper. Before that I was the sports editor, and before that wrote sports for the Student Voice — one of two newspapers at the college, the other being The College Times. The Student Voice originated as the paper of Staten Island Community College; The College Times was the paper of Richmond College.
The colleges merged to become College of Staten Island in 1976, and in 1980 the two papers had a grand merge to become The College Voice.
All the old issues of The College Voice exist at jstor.org, here.
Note that CSI keeps its own records of student publications — part of the overall archive that CSI keeps — but they have recently redesigned their archives and no longer offer online e-versions — instead just have a category listing specifying what box they are in. The jstor.org link above has e-versions of the newspapers.
The College of Staten Island moved to its new Willowbrook campus in 1993, and soon afterwards The College Voice newspaper went rogue from Student Government, evidenced by pictures of Che Guevara on its office window that I saw when I visited the college’s new campus in Willowbrook a year after it opened in 1994. The paper published articles extremely critical of the CSI administration, and Student Government revoked The College Voice’s official status as student paper. A group of students formed a new newspaper, The Banner, which was then designated as the official student paper.
Husain v. Springer: The College Voice Sues President Marlene Springer
The College Voice continued to operate as a Student-Government-funded club, when in 1997 it published an issue that explicitly endorsed a set of candidates for student elections. The President of the college, Marlene Springer, nullified the student election results based on the content of the newspaper issue, saying it was “a thinly veiled piece of campaign literature.”
The College Voice editor Sarah Husein and 8 other editors and staff members sued Springer for violating their 1st Amendment rights. The case, Husain v. Springer, resulted in a court ruling that Springer had infringed on the student newspaper’s free speech. The students were awarded $1 each for a total of $9.
Long story, short — The College Voice faded as a student-funded “club” and alternate paper — folding in 2006. The College of Staten Island had a new official student paper — The Banner.
Today The Banner exists as a print publication and a website. The website is here:
The College Voice Should Have Lasted Into Perpetuity
In an interview for this story, Lou, the original Sports Editor for The College Voice and writer of this article, said, “I have to tell you, as an original editor for The College Voice, it is galling that some moron went rogue and caused the paper to lose its funding — replaced by The Banner. The whole things smells of something rotten. And that has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment court case, which was noble, on its surface — but came 3 years later.”
“Besides all that,” Lou continued. “The College Voice was the perfect name for the merging of the two colleges and their newspapers The College Times and The Student Voice — and yes we did debate calling it the Student Times. The College Voice should have lasted into perpetuity — like Wagner College’s newspaper — The Wagnerian — has.”
Wagner College Student Newspaper
The Wagnerian has been Wagner College’s student newspaper continuously since 1934 — 90 years.
The digital version of The Wagnerian is here:
Here is a resource for all the old issues of The Wagnerian — including two issues that pre-date the 1934 beginning of continuous run of The Wagnerian — from 1918 and 1919.
St. John’s Staten Island Campus School Paper
The St. John’s university-wide student newspaper is The Torch.
St. John’s University established its Staten Island campus in 1971 through a consolidation with the former Notre Dame College of Staten Island. In the 1970’s, St. John’s had a student newspaper specifically for its Staten Island and downtown Brooklyn campuses called The Downtowner.
From 1993 to 1999, the Staten Island campus had a student newspaper called The Arrow, which was succeeded by Storm Front — the student paper from 1999-2006.
St. John’s of course changed the name of their sports team from The Redmen to the Red Storm in 1994, and it looks like the student newspapers followed suit — The Arrow presumably being an Indian arrow.
St. John’s University officially closed its Staten Island campus at the end of the Spring 2024 semester. The closure followed a 2-year phase-out process that began in August 2022 after a significant decline in enrollment.
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