Students in Ink
MIT’s student newspaper, The Tech (established in 1881), is a rich source of student perspectives in any era. Apart from the editorial crusade to revive the All Tech Circus we saw earlier, student journalists in 1926 (such as future MIT President James Rhynes Killian) also reported on the Institute's many clubs and teams as well as important issues of the day such as whether or not to support the League of Nations.
The great expansion of student life that followed the move to the new Cambridge campus also allowed for more varieties of student publications. MIT’s student humor magazine managed by the Woop Garoo Society offered a less serious forum for students to share their writing with their peers.
Comparing The Tech in 1926 to The Tech in 1976 gives the reader an appreciation for just how radically the world changed in those fifty years. While the perspectives that were published in The Tech had diversified greatly by 1976, traditionally underrepresented students felt the need for their own publications as well. MIT’s Sojourner newspaper put out its first issue in 1976, seeking to provide a public outlet for women students, and in 1981 the Black Student Union began publishing their own journal called Catalyst.
