Despite its popularity, the funding of The New York Times Readership Program has been an issue on the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) agenda since the beginning of the year. Public attention returned to the issue several weeks ago when papers were not delivered on three separate days over a two-week span due to discontinued publication at one of The New York Times’ printing sites.
Although the delivery of the paper is back on schedule, the future funding of the program is still very much up for discussion.
The program, overseen by the WSA, is currently under the care of Robert Alvarez ’11. When asked about the program, Alvarez, a member of the Organization and External Affairs Committee, emphasized the crucial role the Times plays in keeping students informed beyond the University campus.
“The New York Times Readership Program is a big way in which we can stay connected with the outside world,” Alvarez said.
According to Alvarez, on any given day, one-fourth of the Wesleyan student body reads or at least picks up a free copy of The New York Times from one of eight distribution locations around campus as part of the Readership Program. Of the 700 to 900 papers delivered each day to campus, all but 100 are usually read.
Alvarez said that the distribution locations in the Public Affairs Center and Fisk consistently run out of papers and that other locations around campus, including Usdan, the Science Center, Summerfields and North College all come relatively close to running out.
With the creation of a free and readily available edition of The New York Times on-line, the Readership Program has been considered unnecessary and a waste of paper, but WSA Vice President Emily Malkin ’08 is very intent on keeping the papers coming to Wesleyan, adding that she herself has a nostalgic attachment to newspapers. She said that the WSA isn’t actively considering a plan to cut the program.
The cost of the program, about $25,000 annually, is shared by the WSA, the Dean of the College and Academic Affairs. The continued funding for the program has been in jeopardy since the University decided to reduce their reliance on the endowment in 2005. Malkin says that they are still weighing options but that the WSA could potentially fund the entire program.
Anda Greeney ’07, who oversaw the program from Fall 2004 through Fall 2006, said that, in his opinion, the program more than pays for itself when one examines its overall impact on campus.
“It is incredibly important to keep this program going,” Greeney wrote via e-mail. “If we consider its cost (about 28K/year) versus the number of students reading the papers and that impact, it is clear that the program is incredibly cost-effective and one of the best outlay of funds in the support of the Wesleyan students’ education.”
Because the program is widely used by the student body, Malkin noted that last year they considered getting it endowed.
“If I had the funds, about $600,000, I would endow the program,” Greeney remarked.
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