VOLUME 13, NO. 3     June 2001

Everything old is new again

With the end of the 1999-2000 academic year, WPI’s student newspaper celebrated an anniversary of sorts--the beginning of another chapter of its life as Tech News. After a survey and some often lively interchanges with faculty, students and alumni, the editorial board decided to replace the Newspeak banner with the name that appeared on the first issue of the newspaper, on Sept. 15, 1909: Tech News. "The word ’tech’ or ’technology’ means so much more today than it did in the early 1900s," wrote Editor in Chief Justin Greenough in a letter to the WPI community. "Back then, people trained technicians to do work. Today we train engineers and scientists, rhetoricians--all problem solvers who will contribute something great to society. The word tech perhaps fits WPI more now than it ever did because the word itself has changed meaning."

Tech News began the 2000-01 academic year with Vol. 65, No.1--following the sequence that the original Tech News ended with. It reflected the new technology as the first issue ever sent to the printer entirely in electronic format. The volunteers who staff the publication continue to be known as the Newspeak Association, in tribute to the name that topped the publication for nearly 30 years. The paper’s Web address is www.wpi.edu/~technews.