One important and traditional staple of American collegiate life is definitely the annual or yearbook that records what happens during a specific academic year. These yearbooks usually appear in the spring, before graduation, allowing students to carry them around, collecting signatures. Then they are put away on a shelf, only to be referred to at various points during one’s life, especially before a class reunion (want to make sure you get all those names and faces right), or to prepare for a special event, like the birthday of my best high school friend, Annie Rubert Garcimonde, who celebrates her 60th birthday today.
Although Annie and I keep in touch constantly—-ours is the kind of friendship that witnesses our lives’ various offerings—-I found myself picking up and dusting off my copy of the Miahi 1965, and there it was, a full page of Annie’s musings, in which she predicted that we would always be friends (how true that was; she even became the godmother to my daughter Ana), and how we would both enter the world of teaching (yes, indeed; Annie teaches high school in Florida, while I have spent a major portion of my career as an academic).
Are the days of the traditional printed yearbook counted? How can that be?
A yearbook is what the mind “googles” when it wants to know the name of that girl in your government class with the Amy Winehouse eye makeup 40 years before Amy was born (yes, Sonia Fernandez), or the name of the prettiest French teacher any sophomore could say Bonjour to (Miss Maxine Taylor), not to mention the assistant principal who instilled fear in the heart of the bravest, she with a braid crowning her head (Miss Agnes Dubois)..
Recently, Purdue University, in Indiana, has published its last yearbook, as has also DePauw University. Various factors contribute to the termination of these yearbooks. The economy is one, as yearbook prices have escalated to about $75; in addition, the replacement of print with electronic media. Students now use YouTube , Facebook, MySpace to relate their world to others.
I imagine it cannot be the same as grabbing the book and seeing the signatures of your classmates and teachers, but, to a new generation, the instant gratification and the enhancement of video and sound, more than compensates.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS: Although I have never worked with a yearbook staff, I do remember the yearbook experts with whom I taught high school/college summer workshops at the University of Oklahoma, as well as Syracuse University. There was the late Professor James Paschal, of Oklahoma, who devoted his career to scholastic journalism, and who advised yearbooks both at the high school and college levels.
“Be unique,” he would lecture his students, “you want a yearbook that captures the spirit of the year, of your time and place. Avoid clichés. And, please, don’t walk thru the sands of time. It has been done. The sands of time are overused and overrated.”
Then there was Mr. Yearbook himself, the late Col. Charles Savedge, a fantastic teacher with a sense of the theatrical (every dog he ever owned was named Tallulah, after the actress Tallulah Bankhead). Savedge’s lectures to yearbook editors are legend. He would climb on a table and proceed to do a parody of every yearbook’s cast of stereotyped characters: the jock quarterback, the pretty Homecoming Queen crying as they crowned her; the spirited cheerleader doing a jump that extended across pages 290 and 291, not to mention the bespectacled librarian, the super macho football coach, and, yes, the smiling principal. All were part of Savedge’s lectures, as the audience laughed, but learned the good lessons as well.
“The yearbook is a little magazine, a little book, a little movie, all in one,” Savedge reminded his audience of attentive high school and college journalists.
In a sense, Col. Savedge was giving us “Grease” and even the more contemporary “High School Musical” long before these scripts were written.
ONE EXPERT’S OPINION: C. Marshall Matlock, a professor at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and former director of the Empire State Press Association, has this to say about the future of yearbooks:
“My sense is that yearbooks, unless supported by a student fee or the student governing body at universities or high schools, are not doing well generally. Students are not as fond of yearbooks as we were when we went to high school or college because they are costly and most may not represent individual students. Yearbooks may be going the way of the class ring. They are costly and have a short life. When is the last time have you seen a college student wearing a high school class ring?
“Yearbooks may be doing better at the high school level but I think you’re right—they are certainly on their way out. Some high schools are turning to publications that resemble magazines more than books. Some schools are producing three to five “magazines” and providing a binder for them rather than producing a large or small book.”
FOR THE RECORD: Marshall, who keeps all types of records, reminds me of these facts about those mentioned in this posting today:
Major Charles E. Savedge was the head-master at Augusta Military Academy, Fort Defiance, VA, most of his adult life. He received a Gold Key from Columbia University’s CSPA in 1966 while he was at the Academy.
Prof. James F. Paschal got his CSPA Gold Key while he was still at Amarillo High School in Texas in 1962.
Yours truly got his CSPA Gold Key in 1980 while at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.
*The Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold key rewarded service to scholastic journalism.
WHAT THEY WILL MISS: Students of the future will definitely miss the sense of permanence that the printed yearbook offered. Another example of how ink on paper can make a difference. It always will. I know: I am preparing for Annie’s birthday tonight, my mind transported to Miami Senior High School, and that night Annie was crowned Queen of the Flowers, and she opted to dance her first dance as queen with me. The orchestra played More, our dance was too short, our friendship forever. The yearbook captured it.
With apologies to Professor Paschal: It has been a long but fun trek thru the sands of time.
WE SEND YOU:
http://cspa.columbia.edu/
http://jmc.ou.edu:16080/osm-oipa/
http://hkeely.blogspot.com/2008/04/yearbooks-not-wired-for-next-generation.html
http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/06/school_yearbooks_have_they_see.html
WHERE IS MARIO? In Miami, watching the rain fall this Sunday morning, and keeping an eye open for possible Lufthansa strike by ground personnel, which may alter my travel plans to Hyderabad, India. And, by the way, the Annie 60th birthday party was a grand success. See picture of me with my best friend through the years above. Next stop: Frankfurt.