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After a 12-year absence, a small group of students has banded together to stage a comeback for The Prism, the University of Maine’s student yearbook.
“We have had a slow start due to networking,” said Robyn Honaker, a fourth year anthropology student and co-editor in chief for The Prism.
Since September, the yearbook’s staff has grown to 10 students, mostly nonseniors, involved in designing assigned pages.
“What we want is underclassmen so that it can carry on next year. We’re mostly seniors and we won’t be here next year,” Honaker said.
Honaker discussed the contributions of Ashley Ferucci, the yearbook’s business manager, to the progress the yearbook committee has made since the start of the academic year. Honaker said hiring Ferucci was key to improving the yearbook’s organization and communication.
“We were struggling with what to do to get the name out there,” Honaker said.
Ferruci has organized tabling in Memorial Union and designed business flyers and advertising to get the word out there about The Prism. The yearbook committee is also using the Internet to generate buzz for their project.
Kirstin Spellman, a new media student and photo editor for The Prism, posted an announcement about the yearbook in early January, exclaiming, “We’re trying to make this yearbook all about you.” The e-mail asked students for photographs, paintings and other art pieces to display in the yearbook, and to get involved.
Pictures will not be set up in the style of a high school yearbook, with rows of portraits featuring every student. Instead, The Prism will feature group photos and students’ names listed with their hometowns. Individual photos of seniors will be taken at the commencement ceremony, where information about the yearbook will be provided to graduating students and their families.
Although there is a section designated for seniors in the yearbook, its focus is on the student experience. Collages of Greek Life, Homecoming, Maine Day, Culture Fest and other events will all be covered and displayed in the yearbook.
The most recent yearbook, published in 2004 as The Dirigamus, sold only 300 copies.
“Many of the students were disappointed by the previous yearbook, ” said Val Mitchell, Affinity Giving Coordinator and Class Advisor.
“It’s student-focused, student-run and it’s student initiative,” Mitchell said, when asked how the new yearbook would be different than The Dirigamus. “It’s not somebody from the outside just trying to sell something.”
The yearbook will be a hardcover, color 224-page book priced at $75.00, with orders forms available on campus at several locations, including tables in the Union and the graduation commencement ceremony. Distribution of the yearbook will come at the beginning of the next school year in August and during September’s Homecoming week.
“If you’re ordering a yearbook you must create an account number online, through Jostens,” Honaker said. Computers will be available to students wherever yearbooks will be sold.
The yearbook staff has set a goal to sell 700 copies — enough to leave the yearbook committee ready to go again next year.
“We are positive we’re going to make it,” Honaker said.
