Far too often, student organizations don’t understand what students want. Money is spent on events and products that simply don’t interest students. The Renegade Rip is as guilty of this as any other student organization, and we are rethinking the way we use money to interest and entertain students.
For example, The Rip published an entire six-page edition last year on the Bakersfield Business Conference. This event was probably not of enough interest to BC students to warrant an entire edition about it.
It’s definitely noteworthy that Nancy Reagan and Jesse Ventura were at the conference, but not too many people care about the real guy from “Black Hawk Down” being there. Students are just not interested in it.
We are also guilty of publishing more than a dozen budget-related articles in our 14 editions last year. We’re sure students are interested in why they are paying so much money and where it is going, but that level of coverage is far too excessive to truly interest students.
So in an effort to connect with student interests more, we’re changing things here at The Rip.
We’re trying to use our money differently so that we can publish a paper with more pages. This will allow us to do things we never could before, like a color double truck.
A double truck is two pages combined, usually in the center fold of a paper. This will allow us to put together stories, photos and art into one big package.
Overall, we are going to strive to cover events and write stories that appeal more to the interests of our college readers. We ask other student organizations to find ways of serving the student body of Bakersfield College more effectively.
In times when students don’t seem interested in school activities, it’s easy to blame apathy or budget cuts. That’s no way to spark student interest or pride.
The Rip has had its share of financial setbacks, and we know other organizations have too, but it’s not going to stop us from looking at new and inventive ways of attracting student interest.