Type | Student newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Tabloid |
Owner(s) | Pacific University |
Editor-in-chief | Ella Cutter & Bren Swogger |
Founded | 1893 |
Headquarters | Forest Grove, Oregon |
Website | pacindex |
The Pacific Index is the student-run newspaper of Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, United States. The biweekly paper is a member of the College Publisher Network.[1]
Pacific University started a campus newspaper in 1893 as a monthly paper named the Pacific University Index.[2] By 1899, circulation for the 16-page paper had grown to 275, with a subscription costing 50 cents.[2] The paper experimented with a "date bureau" to help students find dates, starting the program in March 1936.[3] In 1939, The Index was selected for a second-class honor rating by the Associated Collegiate Press.[4] Then, for the 1939 to 1940 academic year, The Index went through three editors, with freshman Don Wilson as the third taking over in January 1940.[5]
In 1943, the paper was awarded a first-class honor rating by the Associated Collegiate Press.[6] For the 1951 to 1952 school year, Bill Hilliard was the elected editor of the paper, which was still a weekly publication at that time.[7] In 1965, the newspaper and school yearbook were both put under the direction of the school’s journalism department, the first time that had happened at Pacific.[8] That year, Patricia Stephenson was selected as the editor.[8]
The Index endorsed then U.S. Representative Robert B. Duncan over then-governor Mark Hatfield in the 1966 U.S. Senate Race, which Hatfield went on to win.[9] The newspaper also endorsed Tom McCall for Oregon Secretary of State, and Pacific University later started an annual lecture series named in McCall’s honor.[9][10] In October 2010, the Index went through a redesign as well as improvements to the associated website.[11] The newspaper was a biweekly publication at that time.[11]
The student newspaper is published biweekly, though stories appear online more frequently.[11][12] The Index is distributed only on the college’s main campus in Forest Grove and at the school’s Health Professions Campus in Hillsboro, Oregon.[11][12] In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Pacific Index temporarily stopped production of their print issues, and moved to an online only platform. The Pacific Index Podcast was launched in 2020.