By Claudia Balthazar, Staff Writer
After hearing a proposal from a New York Times representative, Walter Barleycorn, the Academic Affairs Committee of SGA is looking into having hard copies of the New York Times back on campus. Academic Affairs Chair Victoria Rametta said, “Academic affairs [will] look into it. There’s no definite. But it would be great to have hard copies back on campus.”
A couple of years ago hard copies of the New York Times was available to Hofstra students for free. However, there are no more free copies available because there are no more funds available to support the big budget needed. However, the proposal made by Barleycorn would supply the New York Times to students at a greatly discounted price. According to Rametta, they’re looking at 50 cents a copy.
Journalism Professor Daniel van Benthuysen said, “I generally am in favor of anything that puts more newspapers in the hands of more people. And if SGA is willing to underwrite it, then it would be great.”
Professor Van Benthuysen requires his students to read the New York Times five days a week. Each week, he quizzes his students on the readings and his questions are based on the first page of the hardcopy of the paper. He said, “The web edition changes each day. At least we know that all the students will get the same results [with the hardcopy].”
This semester, his students all have to pay $32.50 for the semester in order to have access to the New York Times on campus. The paper is delivered to the bookstore Monday through Friday, and his students have to show their ID in order to retrieve their hard copy from the bookstore. Van Benthuysen said, “$32.50 for one semester is not too bad. If you’re taking two journalism classes, it’s an even bigger discount and I think it’s the equivalent price of a textbook.” He added, “Mr. Barleycorn came up with the proposal and we pulled it through.”
According to sophomore Print Journalism major Samantha Neudorf, having the New York Times back on campus is beneficial for Print Journalism majors because it gives them that physical print aspect. She also mentioned, “I think it should be back on campus because it’s a really big newspaper. Instead of having just The Chronicle, we could have the physical copy of national news.”
Academic Affairs is looking into Barleycorn’s proposal but it is not definite that it will be implemented.
“SGA cannot [bear] the whole cost alone,” said Rametta. “We would appreciate other schools helping to meet the cost difference.”
Tuesday’s SGA meeting paired senators in matching pairs, sponsored by the Spirit Committee. (Cody Heintz/The Chronicle)
