Journalism 235 Student Publications

Students of Harper College’s Career Journalism Program have traditionally produced a publication over the course of a semester as part of the credit-bearing course Journalism 235. The publication took the form of a student newspaper entitled The Voice during the 1970s and 80s. In the 1990s, journalism 235 students transformed the publication into a glossy magazine entitled WriteNow. The publication retained its magazine format when it was renamed Multitudes in 1998. The year 1990 was a transitional time for the Journalism Program, as the program’s founder, Henry Roepken, had recently retired and new technology was changing the direction of the journalism department. The changes were documented in the Summer 1990 issue of Add One, the Journalism Program’s newsletter (box 2, folder 1 of this collection). The program was transitioning to a desktop publishing model as the department was set to acquire all new Macintosh computers with desktop publishing software that was cutting edge at the time. As the classroom technology was slated to change, the publications would change as well. The Voice would “use more of a magazine format with longer stories, an increased number of photos and a modernized design” (“Big Macs seen in J-Program future,” Add One, Summer 1990). The first issue of WriteNow, published in Spring 1991 by students of Journalism 235, reflected these changes. The new publication was printed in a glossy magazine format, with longer articles, more photographs, and state of the art computer graphics. WriteNow remained in publication by students of Journalism 235 until 1998, when it was replaced by Multitudes, which was described by editor Tom Brennan as a “fast-paced magazine created exclusively for residents of Chicago’s northwest suburbs”(Multitudes, Summer 1998; see box 2, folder 3 of this collection).