THE PUBLICATIONS Group of the Sarah Lawrence College has undertaken the responsibility of editing a monthly magazine, The Keynote, of which this is the first issue. The group hopes that it will make a way for itself among the publications of other colleges.
The Publications Group was organized with an idea to provide an understanding of journalism and professional magazine publishing, through the problems that arise in connection with the editing of a magazine and year book in the college itself. The group is divided into two sections, the business and the editorial, and the members of this organization join with and work for that section which interests them.
The business section deals with the problems of circulation, advertising, etc., to give the student sufficient grounding in the fundamentals of business journalism, so that she may hope to enter the profession without further specialized or technical training. Members have divided themselves into groups covering the different departments of their section, and are working on the business problems of the publication of The Keynote.
The editorial section deals with journalism in general. It gives specific experience in collecting and judging material for a magazine and the different processes necessary to the completion of a monthly. This section also has been divided into committees to cover the various departments of literary contributions.
The editorial and the business sections are linked on the editorial board through the election of a managing editor from the business section, who attends all the meetings of the editorial division and connects the business work with theirs.
The Keynote should become, first of all, a written record of the events taking place in the Sarah Lawrence College, which has just opened this fall. The story of the development of Sarah Lawrence will, the group hopes, appear in The Keynote, this furnishing a historical record of the life of the college.
There will be an effort made in The Keynote to provide a publication achieving the highest of which the college is capable in literary value, and which shall stimulate literary expression. It will provide the means for correlating the various group activities into which the student body has divided themselves according to their interests; for discussing college problems and opinions; and for forming a link between Sarah Lawrence and other colleges.
There will be an attempt made to eliminate from The Keynote things obvious and trite, with a desire to establish a magazine expressing the individuality of Sarah Lawrence College.
It is the chief aim of the publications group to intensify group spirit. The whole college is asked to contribute to The Keynote not only their literary efforts, but their opinions, criticisms, and ideas. The Sarah Lawrence monthly should be a creation of the whole community. Coordination in all the departments of the Publications Group itself will be striven for, and problems will be discussed among the group as much as possible. The exchange of opinions derived from the discussion of a group problem is valuable beyond anything else.
This piece was first published in Issue 1 of The Keynote, an early student journal, in 1928.