In the back of Student Services — Room 311B to be precise — you will find an office staffed with about 25 people, running one of the largest annually published books you might never hear about, much less read. But for the staffers, who like many workers these days work long hours for low pay, they’re just glad to be in the stuffy pea-green room the Red Cedar Log calls home.
Vicari Vollmar, who will become the editor in chief of MSU’s yearbook in the fall, said although the yearbook does not receive the exposure it bequeaths to other events, the staff keeps itself going by moving from one to the next task at hand.
“It is discouraging because you want people to appreciate your work,” Vollmar said. “But you can’t force people to take it. As a staff you move forward and try to improve. You listen to other people’s ideas.”
The yearbook’s operations received a funding blow this month after ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government and the Log’s primary source of funding, decreased its yearly allocation by nearly 2 percent.
As they look ahead to the fall with less money in its coffers, staffers’ outlooks for the publication’s future still is optimistic.
A campus fixture
The staff at the yearbook is part of a history that dates back to the late 1890s when the book first was founded, according to ASMSU’s website. Publication ran until about 1995, when the yearbook closed because of lack of interest and financial challenges. It was restarted in 1998 as a department of ASMSU.
Vollmar said the main goal of the Red Cedar Log is to chronicle as much of on-campus life as possible.
“Our main goal is to capture MSU’s history and combine it into one piece for people to have for the rest of their life,” Vollmar said.
Despite their quaint surroundings on the top floor of Student Services, the Red Cedar Log regularly receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in student taxpayer money. As part of the yearbook service offered by ASMSU, the Red Cedar Log receives $3 per student from ASMSU’s undergraduate tax.
According to ASMSU’s 2010-11 budget, the Red Cedar Log will receive nearly $250,000. In 2009-10, it received about $252,000. And for the 2008-09 and 2007-08 years, it received about $267,000 and $304,000, respectively.
The cuts in the Log’s total budget are an increasing trend that in the past few years has been steep.
For the 2008-09 year, ASMSU was prepared to cut $16,000 from the Red Cedar Log’s budget. This year, cuts from the “Year Book Publication” budget line totaled more than $40,000. The budget for distribution — $8,640 — was cut entirely.
Other line items were added to the yearbook’s budget, including tens of thousands of dollars among the Readership Program and the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Scholarship, among others. Those funds will not be available to the Red Cedar Log, but rather are there in order to maintain the $3 per student mandated by ASMSU’s constitution.
Student Assembly Chairperson Eric Branoff said nearly $18,000 went to fund the Readership Program and the rest of it was cut to free up money in the budget.
“It’s fishy because they have to have $3 allocated to them, but there is no actual language saying they need to use it,” Branoff said. “We operate under the assumption they don’t need the entire $3.”
Looking ahead
For outgoing editor in chief Matthew Mikus, decreasing funds are only problematic if the trend continues.
“Right now the difference is that we will be able to keep the money we make from selling advertising and senior portraits,” Mikus said.
“If they started cutting more after this, I would be concerned.”
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Mikus, a journalism senior and State News guest columnist, said typically the money is rolled into ASMSU’s funds for the next year. For 2009-10, the money — about $30,000 — will first go to the Red Cedar Log and any remainder will be given to ASMSU.
Even with the funds, Mikus said the staff will have to do more with less. The things he said the Red Cedar Log needs, such as new computers and cameras, will either have to come secondhand or not at all.
Already, he said production of yearbooks has dropped by 1,000 — down from 17,000 last year. And in later years, Mikus thinks it could significantly decrease.
“I’ve thrown a few ideas out there like cutting distribution and increasing the number of pages,” Mikus said. “People ask me about publishing completely online, but technology changes too fast to ensure the digital print will remain the same.”
Vollmar said she thinks the most productive way to solve the distribution problem is to bring in some fresh thinking.
“I think we need to sit down and look at the problem and get the library and local businesses involved,” Vollmar said. “I think we need to look at the greek community and make sure they are getting enough books for their houses.”
Vollmar said she wants to keep the community engaged in the process to make sure the yearbook — and its talents — reach as many people as possible.
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