Students gain new opportunity to stay informed

Many students here at WPI have interest in staying informed on national, global, and local news, but many have found it too much of a burden or too out-of-thought on busy days to go to a local store to buy a newspaper every day and stay an informed part of the world outside WPI. For this reason, the Student Life office, along with Residential Services and USA Today, are running a four-week program to see whether student interest in newspapers might be stimulated by reliable, free, and convenient access to newspapers.

The program, which started Monday, the 15th, delivers 3 newspapers, one local, one regional, and one national, in this case the (Worcester) Telegram & Gazette, The Boston Globe, and USA Today, to every on-campus residence for free every Monday through Friday. It is one effort that Residential Services Office is making to provide and support the community with "Diversity, Community, Education, and Services".

USA Today has been running the program for several years in other schools throughout the country, but this is the first time WPI has run a trial of the program. USA Today is paying for the four-week trial period and if the trial is successful, then WPI itself will continue to fund the program.

Philip Clay, Associate Dean of Student Life & Director of Residential Services, is coordinating the program here at WPI. After three weeks Clay says he will analyze data about how popular each offered paper was and decide whether or not the program is worth continuing. A survey was held on the second day of the trial, and a post-survey will also be conducted at the end of the four weeks to see what students think of the program and whether they'd like to see it stay.

Clay is very optimistic that the program will succeed in its two goals, which are to "provide resources to help make [students] aware of local and national news" as well as help keep students aware of local events on and off campus. "I often hear students saying 'there's nothing to do around here,' and that's simply not true," says Clay, who recommends that students make liberal use of such newspaper features as The Boston Globe's "Weekend Section," which appears in every Thursday's paper.

Also during this four week trial period, Clay will be monitoring exactly how much usage each paper gets and determining how many of each paper are read by students in each residence.