Seeing themselves
UCA yearbook allows student selfies
Students don’t have to stand in long lines to get their photos made for the yearbook at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway; they can simply shoot selfies and email them.
Polly Walter, associate professor of journalism and adviser to The Scroll, said last year was “a test year” for selfies to be submitted.
“It was our 100th book, and the editor last year, we sat down and talked about it,” Walter said.
The idea was to tie in the old and the new, doing traditional photo shoots and allowing selfies to increase participation.
“We’re trying to get different methods of people getting pictures made,” she said. “Students say, ‘Oh, I don’t look good,’ or ‘Oh, I don’t have time right now.’”
So they can wait until they’re ready, look into their own cameras and smile.
The concept has changed since Walter became adviser to The Scroll in 1990.
“Used to be, we’d have a photographer come on campus, and he would have [students] in their caps and gowns and hope that families would buy pictures,” Walter said. “With digital cameras, it’s a lot easier for people to have their own pictures; that’s part
of what changed. Everybody has their own camera phone; everybody’s already taking [selfies] and putting them up on social-media sites. They’re creating their own historical moments on social media.”
Last year, “quite a few” students submitted selfies, Walter said. “We do get a lot of both; we don’t get 11,500,” she said, referring to the total enrollment.
Bethany Thweatt of Palestine, editor of The Scroll, said allowing students to submit selfies helped “a little bit” last year.
Walter said that in 2014, there were 474 student portraits. In 2015, the number increased to 627, and 76 of those were selfies. Still, that is only 5.4 percent of the students on campus.
Thweatt said the “main problem is getting it out there and letting people know it’s serious,” adding that advertising the yearbook’s acceptance of selfies has helped.
Walter said The Scroll, which has paid and volunteer staff, has tried putting posters and banners up announcing times and dates for yearbook photos — and the fact that it accepts selfies — as well as putting a notice in The Echo, the student newspaper, and using campus mail and email.
She agreed that word is getting around. “This year, it seems like we’re getting more [selfies]. We don’t have enough yet, but our deadline for those isn’t till the end of the month,” Walter said. Students may send photos to scroll@uca.edu. She said students need to include their names, majors and classification.
Students may get their photos made at The Scroll office, too, which is in the basement of Bernard Hall. Yearbook photographers also walk the campus to snap students’ photos for the yearbook, Walter said.
Senior Misti Hollenbaugh of Greenbrier said she has had her yearbook photo taken only once.
“My freshman year, a photographer grabbed me and said, ‘Hey, let me take your picture.’ Since then, I have not made the effort to get it taken,” Hollenbaugh said.
She said she likes the idea of students being allowed to submit selfies. Hollenbaugh said one of
The Scroll staff members told her about the selfies, “which I think is pretty cool, and I think is a way to increase the number of people whose pictures are in it,” but not hers. “The only problem is, this semester, I’m never on campus, and I hate selfies.”
Thweatt, however, is going that route. “This year, I’m probably going to do a selfie because I can dictate how nice I look,” she said.
Walter said registered student organizations — and there are more than 200, she said — may send in group photos.
“We will go and take the photograph, if they schedule it, or if they want to bring their group to us, they can meet us by the fountain or on the steps of the amphitheater,” she said.
The Scroll is funded by student fees, $6 a term, fall and spring, which also funds The
Echo and Vortex, a literary magazine.
“It’s still cheap,” Walter said, adding that some high school yearbooks can cost almost $100.
“Not every student gets one; for all three, it’s a first-come, first-served basis,” she said. “We have a little bit of a problem with people knowing we have a yearbook.”
Walter said some schools have dropped their yearbooks, but she has been to conferences and found that many universities still produce a yearbook. Other institutions also allow the use of selfies, she said.
Arkansas Tech University in Russellville no longer publishes its yearbook, the Agricola. The last one was published in 2007, said Tommy Mumert, associate professor of journalism and then-yearbook adviser.
Mumert said the yearbook stopped for “several factors, including cost, general lack of interest in the book — we would almost plead with student organizations to submit info and photos for their spreads in the book — and lack of interest in students who wanted to work on the book. As a result of the latter challenge, we typically would have anywhere from about two to four students who were producing the book, and frankly, the quality suffered. The next year, I fielded two, maybe three inquiries from people asking where the yearbook was. So I don’t think too many people even noticed that it was gone.”
Central Baptist College and Hendrix College, both in Conway, still publish yearbooks. Ann Gardner, adviser for
The Carillon at CBC, said, “We do not allow selfies to be submitted, as our policy is that the yearbook staff takes portraits of all students and faculty. This might be a consideration for the future, but as of now, we don’t allow selfies.”
Ruthie Daniel, last year’s editor of the Hendrix Troubadour, said, “In the past few years, the Troubadour has just used student-ID photos in the residence-life section; however, in the senior section, seniors are able to submit a photo of their choosing, which can include selfies.”
Walter said she and some of The Scroll staff went before the Student Government Association a few years ago and suggested an online yearbook, but the SGA didn’t embrace the idea.
“I guess they still like the idea of a book; we haven’t been back to the SGA in a while,” she said.
Students sometimes consider their future selves when thinking about the yearbook, Walter said.
“They say, ‘In 20 years, when I want to show my kids, I can’t find anything on social media. It’s not where I thought it would be, or who knows what it will be, and I can carry this book around,’” Walter said.