Lauren Seynhaeve (The Beacon)
By Lauren Seynhaeve, Guest Commentary
"You don't pay $180,000 for a piece of paper. You pay it for experience," Brian Doyle.
I've been thinking a lot about that $180,000 we pay for a University of Portland education. And the experience we all get while we're on The Bluff.
This is what I've experienced: I spent a year writing for The Beacon, and I've spent the last year and a half as the editor-in-chief of The Log. During my time as a journalist at UP, I've met a lot of remarkable students and teachers. I've met everyone from future Air Force pilots to entrepreneurs, from writers to priests who have been friends for decades.
When I set up these interviews, I was never questioned when I asked for an interview for a story I was writing for The Beacon. But 90 percent of the time, I have had to explain to students that there is, in fact, a yearbook on campus.
In my experience as a journalist at UP, I've met with resistance. And for a student yearbook, that's not right. We aren't writing shocking stories or the breaking news - the yearbook isn't published until July, and it's passed out the fall after the academic year we cover. Everything we write is meant to capture the simple truths and memories that made a year significant.
On the sign above the newspaper's office, it merely says "The Beacon." Above our office, it says "The Log yearbook." Because people on campus need to be told what The Log is - the name doesn't stand alone.
Last year, we had to plead not to be sent to the back of St. Mary's, behind locked doors. The administrators hadn't even thought that we might need or want a door that has access to the general population.
In my experience at UP, student media can either play a significant role in making change and influencing student life, or it can stand in the background, lonely and unappreciated.
The Log is just one example of that. Did you know that there's a student radio on campus too? You can't tune in anymore, since the hard lines were accidentally cut, and the campus won't play the station anywhere on campus. But KDUP is UP's very own radio station, and the students that put together the broadcasts are truly talented.
I ask that we stand together, as a community, to support student media on The Bluff. Continue to pick up your copy of The Beacon, and write in when you have something you want to say.
But also ask your dorm lobby, The Anchor, The Cove, and anywhere else you can think of to play KDUP. Support your fellow students by listening to the work they do.
Pick up your free copy of the yearbook each year, and remember all the remarkable students and teachers that you have been able to work and study with during your time here.
If we pay $180,000 for an experience, let's make that experience something to remember.
Lauren Seynhaeve is an English and German studies double major. She can be reached at seynhaev13@up.edu.
