In 1997 and 1998, The Daily Collegian went through one of the darkest periods in its modern history, including a potential financial collapse.

The decade of the 1990s opened with the worst newspaper recession in the United States since somebody started keeping statistics in the 1940s. Local advertising volume for The Daily Collegian declined by about 30 percent from 1989 to 1995. The newspaper world recovered from that recession by the mid-1990s. Collegian did not, and I saw worse coming, because of problems in our own Business Division.

All of that led to a prolonged financial crunch that included cutting costs and holding down expenses.

At the same time, we were in a race to replace all of our computer systems. In the 1970s and 1980s, we dealt with bigger leaps in technology, but those were more or less an orderly process of installation and refinement over the course of two decades. Never before had we faced replacing everything.

We successfully completed most of the computer upgrades, including those for advertising, news and production. We lost one — the race to replace our business computers, which, among other things, resulted in a catastrophic failure of our accounting system. We had to recreate data.

Unprecedented turnover on the Professional Staff started in the summer of 1997. Over the course of six months, the following people left: general services manager, systems manager, assistant systems manager and news adviser. We eliminated the general services manager position, and I filled in as news adviser until I was sure we had the cash to pay for a new one.

A second wave of turnover hit two years later, when three of our top four systems employees left.

Student editors and business managers serve for a full year here. An early exit is exceptionally rare. In 1997-98, we had three editors and two business managers.

Penn State caught us by surprise in July 1997 when details were announced for the Penn State Newspaper Readership Program.

In March 1997, Editor in Chief Jason Alt, Business Manager Joanne Charyton and I had met with Penn State Vice President for Student Affairs William Asbury. He told us the plan was to deliver The New York Times and the Centre Daily Times. One of those newspapers would be chosen for the program. We could not imagine the CDT would be chosen over The New York Times.

We were already aware of the survey for the pilot project. At the March 1997 meeting, Asbury promised to furnish us with the results of the survey.

In later communications with Alt, Betty Moore, director and senior research analyst, also promised to send us the survey results. We already had plenty to keep us busy, so we decided to wait for the research results before deciding what to about the program.

We were astonished when Penn State announced in July 1997 that the CDT, The New York Times and USA Today would be delivered starting the following month. We also had not received the survey results, which apparently were issued in June 1997. Asbury later acknowledged that was an oversight, but nonetheless we got very short notice.

The survey results showed dramatic increases in readership of the CDT and The New York Times, while Collegian lost readership. At that point, we could no longer put off dealing with the Penn State Newspaper Readership Program.

I have not listed all of the crises and challenges. By about January 1998, I was giving us a 50-50 chance of surviving the next six months. We did survive, but I think it was real close. In the spring of 1998, the Business Division stabilized, and the downward spiral stopped. Financially, we had cut about $120,000 in expenses and added $60,000 back for competitive reasons to improve the paper (such things as process color every day on Page 1 and a bigger newshole).

Over the next two years, The Daily Collegian struggled back. I cannot list all of the successes or all of the people who contributed to the comeback.

"The decade of the 1990s opened with the worst newspaper recession in the United States since somebody started keeping statistics in the 1940s. Local advertising volume for The Daily Collegian declined by about 30 percent from 1989 to 1995. The newspaper world recovered from that recession by the mid-1990s. Collegian did not ..."

The dot-com boom gave us an unanticipated financial windfall, including a record for the year ending May 31, 2000. We were also blessed with an extraordinary group of student leaders.

In 1998, Bridgette Blair stepped forward as a strong leader in the News Division when she became editor in chief. The first issue of the fall under her leadership was operationally flawless, and that was a record for a first fall issue. She worked hard all year to rebuild the News Division.

That same year Scott Fallgren became a strong leader in the Business Division. During his year as business manager, Scott got it. He fully understood our reason for being. He got the mission and the tradition, and he helped to re-instill that in the Business Division.

In 1999, the torch passed to Editor in Chief Stacey Confer and Business Manager Laura Trovato. They continued the rebuilding process. In separate incidents, I had occasion to see both under tremendous pressure, and they responded with great courage and great poise.

The following year, Editor in Chief Patricia Tisak and Business Manager Fran Sadiky were the right people at the right place at the right time.

Progress in the Business Division seems less glamorous perhaps, because you can't see it on Page 1, and business people don't get bylines. The dot-com bust arrived full force last year. We were not surprised, and our Business Division met that challenge well. Fran launched a very successful program to solicit recruitment advertising, which helped to replace the loss of the dot-com revenue. That is only one example.

Upgrading the Office Department was another example of Fran's leadership. Among other things, the name was changed to the Customer Service Department, and duties were expanded to include servicing a list of local advertising clients. Fran was aided Spring Semester by Advertising Manager Jon Story, who was promoted from Customer Service. As far as I can recall, this was the first time the ad manager did not come from the Sales Department.

Good performance in the News Division does show up on Page 1, and we had some great front pages last year. In Collegian history, we've had many great editors and many great managing editors and some great combinations. Last year, the combination of Tricia Tisak and Managing Editor Tim Swift was dynamite.

Their success was amplified by some very strong seniors:

-- Arts Editor Angela Gates delivered the best sustained Arts Department performance since the 1980s, when P.J. Platz began an era of strong Weekend Sections on Fridays. Angela also launched Arts in Review on Thursdays, a full-page preview with full color.

-- Online Editor Kelly Bradish is regarded as the best Web editor we've had to date. We often posted breaking news and weekend updates. In fact, our Web site kept posting fresh news about the protest last spring during Finals Week, even though The Daily Collegian had stopped publishing. During April, The Digital Collegian recorded more than 1.1 million pageviews, a record, from more than 360,000 user sessions, another record. Traffic to our Web site comes at all hours of the day and from all over the world — 129 countries were represented in April.

-- Beth Baumgardner was in charge of our new Science and Technology Section, which became a free-standing section with full-color front on Tuesdays.

-- Susie Xu took over the Opinion Section for Spring Semester. She had just returned from an internship. Under her leadership we published excellent opinion columns. She recruited more columnists and gave each fewer columns to write, which also gave them more time to work on each column. She also did a great job of getting more space for letters to the editor, and we had a flood of letters, including letters from Penn State alumni.

-- Daryl Lang was administration reporter. That title did not describe everything he contributed last year. Following is one example: Daryl worked on a story about Penn State's expansion on what is now called West Campus. When he discovered we needed a graphic for the front-page story, he created one, which was one of our best information graphics last year. Clearly, he was our chief reporter, who also provided leadership and guidance to other reporters.

Every year, I encounter stories and columns and editorials that are so well written and so powerful that I read them a second time. Sometimes a third. I did a lot of reading last year, because we had so much compelling copy.

These Collegianaires inherited a legacy created by thousands of Collegian alumni. They also understood that they are responsible for preserving that legacy for the thousands who will follow.