The Missouri Students Association is expanding the Mizzou Readership Program this semester with three new locations and more advertisement to increase usage.
The readership program consists of the boxes around campus that offer newspapers to students. Students can choose from The New York Times, the Columbia Missourian, USA Today and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch every Monday through Friday. There are 34 locations across campus.
“I think it’s important that we provide those resources for students so that they can be informed about current affairs and so that they can know about the world around them,” MSA President Eric Woods said. “And honestly there’s just something special about holding a newspaper and reading the news as opposed to getting it online.”
The new boxes are located in Reynolds Journalism Institute, North Residence Hall and the west entrance of the MU Student Center.
Students pay a $2.31 fee each semester that covers the cost of this program. According to the publications’ respective websites, a weekly subscription would cost $3.70 for the New York Times, $2.49 for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, $2.50 for USA Today and $2.37 for the Missourian.
Weekday subscriptions to all of these publications would cost $176.96 a semester.
“There’s a sizable carry over at the end of each fiscal year,” Department of Student Services Director Greg Loeffler said. “So what we’re doing with the intense advertising and the new locations is trying to get students to use the newspapers so that more of that fee is spent because they pay that fee at the beginning of every year, but if they’re not using it then it just kind of sits there.”
Loeffler said money left over at the end of the semester is spent by the vice chancellor on various student projects.
“Not very many people have been using this service,” Woods said. “That’s what a big part of the expansion is, just making people aware of it.”
Woods said there was a decrease in readership during the transition from Brady Commons to the student center, when many locations weren’t up. He said he hopes students will be able to find the new locations now that the student center is up and running.
“It’s something that I feel like everyone should do,” Woods said. “Stay informed, stay up to date, read the news. So not only are we saving students money so they don’t have to go out and buy a physical newspaper or subscribe to an online newspaper they have that service for them to learn and to grow and expand their knowledge and all those other cliché things. It’s important because we need to be aware of the things that are going on in the world.”
The national program is administered by USA Today and is on many college campuses. USA Today provides the papers and only charges MU for the papers that were used. They also distribute the papers to the locations across campus.
“I think it’s an excellent program because students spend so much of their time running from class to class, place to place,” Loeffler said. “You know, oftentimes people are accused of not knowing what’s going on outside of the university, so this is a really easy way to pick up the newspapers and do a quick read and see what’s going on outside of Columbia.”