What is the Future for NSCC Student Communication?

By Annabelle Fend | June 11, 2007

What is the future of NSCC Communication and student government? Where does The Polaris fit into this? We interviewed Roy Flores and Jeffrey Vasquez to get the real scoop.

New technologies are changing the way the world communicates. Professional newspapers are changing to include Pod Casts, Blogs, and going online, and colleges need to catch up according to NSCC administrators. Students walk around text messaging and watching YouTube, and radio and TV are part of everyday life. Where does that leave The Polaris?

The paper’s staff is making connections to move with the times and look toward the future of this publication. Staff writer Annabelle Fend sat down with Roy Flores, Vice President, Student Development Services, and Jeffrey Vasquez, Director of Multi-cultural Programs and Student Services to discuss what the future holds for student government and campus communication, including this student paper.

“North Seattle Community College needs to rethink a lot of things,” according to Roy Flores. One of those things is the role of student government, what does it mean, what should it be, and what is our vision in it.” He says student government, as is the situation with the student paper, suffers from a high turnover because of the short two-year programs.

In the case of the student paper, there is a special challenge in that it is not associated with a Journalism program. The turnover, the lack of curriculum supporting the paper, and the special population of community colleges make things tough.

Jeffrey Vasquez says North needs to look at how to create a structure that supports The Polaris and supports the students who work on The Polaris. So the school is forming a task force to study the paper.

The task force idea comes from recommendations from the NSCC Student Leadership and Multicultural Programs Budget Development Sub-Committee (BDSC) which fields budget requests for The Polaris and other programs. When budget requests went to the Sub-Committee earlier this year, the response was a reduction of the request to stay the same as the 2006-2007 year budget and a request the Board of Publications convene a task force to “…develop a plan and process for ensuring the future success of The Polaris in its ability to be a reliable source of student needs.” The task force is to be made up of students, staff and faculty who will assess students’ needs and desires for news, look at the distribution media, and develop plans for the future.

The BDSC memo states “We feel it is imperative that the Polaris stop production entirely (if that is necessary) in order to develop the infrastructure that will support its’ (sic) future success in producing a consistent quality product year after year.”

So is this the last year for the student paper that started when North did in 1970?

“There is not an expectation The Polaris will operate or not operate next year,” according to Vasquez. “The expectation is that a system and plan will be put in place to ensure success. If the two can happen simultaneously that would be great.”

Both Vasquez and Flores cite the lack of continuity from year to year as part of the reason The Polaris struggles. Flores says he sent an email saying without a journalism program, he can’t support a student newspaper. And both say there needs to be an advisor who is on campus and maybe part of the faculty. Vasquez says one solution might be to make the Polaris a class, but he acknowledges that might lead to loss of independence.

One issue the task force is concerned about is coordinating media on campus. Northspeaks, the Blog started last quarter, SCCTV, Rainier Radio and now The Polaris online and in print have very informal and minimal connections. Administrators are looking at the task force to come up with ways those media can support each other and provide better news dissemination to the student body.

“But how does that look in practice?” asks Vasquez. “What I’ve heard Bob Schuessler, [of the Communications Department] say is that the students who take his class could work on The Polaris, but the students who work on The Polaris are not going to first take a class and learn those technologies. The class model might be one way, the other methods might be weekly trainings or seminars.”

The Polaris and the communication program have already made tentative efforts to coordinate and cross promote. Vasquez says administrators have looked at Bellevue Community College’s very successful student newspaper. He points out that weekly paper generates $125,000 in revenue a year. So is money making the goal for the paper? Flores says he doesn’t thinks so, and even says he doesn’t think The Polaris should sell ads.

It is clear that North is not the only community college struggling over the student paper. The Seattle Times recently ran a story about how many community college newspapers are going under. Will North’s be next?

The fate of The Polaris is in the hands of a task force not yet appointed, and the Board of Publications charged with working with it.

What does Flores see? “The issue of student government and the student newspaper are intertwined. Both need a wake up call. We have an opportunity to make it a more enhanced model from what we’ve got — more effective and more participatory. It’s going to take a lot of conversations and a lot of candor. I will support [The Polaris] provided there is something different from the way we’ve been doing it. We’ll have larger conversations about where we need to go.”

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