This is our birthday suit.
Today marks 124 years in The Daily Collegian’s history, and we decided to try something new (old) on for this year’s celebration.
This student newspaper has gone through four name changes (Free Lance, State Collegian, Penn State Collegian and The Daily Collegian) and four office moves (Old Main, Sackett, Carnegie and the James buildings).
We’ve been monthly, we’ve been weekly, we’ve been semi-weekly, we’ve been daily. This is how the Penn State Collegian looked in 1921.
Despite the transformations, this newspaper has always been there. We were there in 1972, when thousands of Penn State students swarmed the Old Main lawn in protest of the Vietnam War. We were there in 1966, when Joe Paterno first stepped onto the grass for his first game as head coach of the football team. And we were even there in 1940, when the Penn State All-College Cabinet approved funding for an electric scoreboard in Rec Hall.
These are just a few of the quintessential Penn State stories the generations of reporters here produced for generations of university students.
This staff has been there as this university has evolved. And, along the way, this newspaper has evolved, too.
In years past, we had three executive positions: Editor-in-Chief, Business Manager and Women’s Editor.
In 1943, Alice Fox became the first woman editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian.
Twenty-one years later, we had our first Commonwealth Campus transfer student editor-in-chief.
In 1956, we used color for the first time in an advertisement.
And in the beginning of the 1970s, we solidified our independent status from the university, giving our student staff members the ability to report the news without any oversight from administrators — a feat many college newspapers still have not accomplished.
We’ve chronicled this community’s history for 124 years, and I have no doubt we will be writing about it for another 124.
So, today, I ask you to celebrate our birthday with us.
Elizabeth Murphy is a senior majoring in journalism and women’s studies and is The Daily Collegian’s editor-in-chief. Her email address is eam5115@psu.edu.
