My Senior Gift Pictorally: To Think About

Newsletter

The newsletter was created during the Fall 2001 semester. The idea for a newsletter came the year before, at a meeting in the fall semester. During the meeting we discussed some problems that we had with the school newspaper, so I had the idea of creating a newsletter so that we could be represented and report information not covered in the other. The idea at first was not truly accepted, but after some thought was put into the work involved and the financial aspects; we decided to go forth with the idea and create a newsletter.

I was on the committee—Telecommunications—that was going to spearhead the development of the newsletter. We picked various names for the newsletter and discussed what the focus would be. Three of my suggested names ended in the top 5 list.

The final selection was Expanding Horizons, a suggestion by yours truly. I was not able to work on the first two issues of because I had transferred schools during the Spring 2001 semester with no plans to return. However I did come back, so I began work on the 2nd volume during the Fall 2001 semester. That semester, I was the Chair of the new TeleComPub committee (they were all integrated into one).

I ended up doing the majority of the work, but I didn't mind. I used the old newsletters as templates and made changes that I saw fit. I tailored the content of the newsletter to the original purpose and staying in tune with the title, "Expanding Horizons," which I thought was the intent.

However, the focus had shifted to using the newsletter a "tool" to get funding/donations from corporations. I didn't have a problem with it until had mentioned running ads from various businesses in the newsletter and writing articles on different businesses, and doing other things to promote businesses which "scratched our backs."

This meant that the focus would be less on "expanding horizons" and more on making money and succumbing to the will of "Corporate America" and "corporate dollars." In my opinion that makes "The Daily Beacon" in many ways, bring or deliver little "news" that's not tainted by "corporate (UT Board of Trustees)" money. But that's another story.

There were issues and problems from the beginning but that's another story and I will not go into it. After the smoke cleared, I decided to resign from my position. I made up my mind after talking with current and ex-members about the issues I was having with the organization (and certain members).

Through the conversations, I realized that they had faced the some of the same problems, but I guess I must have been the first to confront them because I had never heard of my/their problems before. I voiced my opinion and made my thoughts known to others, so it was no matter an issue that they could keep in the closet, even though, it probably is still there because people do not want to be seen as antagonizers or just do want to express their "true" feelings for whatever reason.

I let my committee members and the heads of NSBE know that I had planned to reissue the newsletter after I made some changes to one of the articles (with a "corporate" slant). I did some research on some of the statements made and they were false.

2nd Volume, 1st Issue






Last Modified: 2 November 2024 EST