Students at Suffolk County Community College (SCCC) Grant Campus often confuse The Grant Times to be the student newspaper on campus, as opposed to the Western Student Press — leading to widespread mix-up and confusion to finally be cleared up once and for all!
Principal Office Assistant, Lynn McCloat, explained that The Grant Times “began at the start of the 2012-2013 academic year when Dr. James Keane was Executive Dean” of the Grant Campus. The very first issue, “The Grant Times… Weekly Headlines from the Executive Dean’s Office,” covered events from August 29, 2012 – September 5, 2012. It was emailed to faculty and staff weekly; featuring a calendar of events for the upcoming week, important web links and campus contacts phone numbers, and it welcomed new faculty members. Since its start-up in August 2012, “it has been running for 13 academic years,” though it is not published during the winter or summer sessions.
The Grant Times is a source of information for upcoming events on campus using flyers. “It covers a two-week time period beginning on a Monday through to the second Monday after that,” says Ms. McCloat. The Grant Times posts new flyers added to that issue and then has a calendar of events for the upcoming two weeks. It has a section to “spotlight a faculty or student accomplishment or event,” as well as flyers with club information and campus resource information. It is now published using Microsoft Sway and sent as a link which is emailed to everyone on campus.
While The Grant Times contains information about resources and upcoming events on campus using visual sources, like flyers, the Western Student Press is more of a traditional newspaper in the sense that “it uses the written word as it reports on campus news that has already happened,” with articles of interest to the students like Features and Arts & Entertainment. While both contain valuable information, it is important to note that the Western Student Press is “for students” and “by students,” while The Grant Times is simply pertaining to student events, but run by campus staff. There was no comment made by The Grant Times when introduced to the possibility of collaborating with the Western Student Press.
