More of what happened early last week

I came up with this elaborate sequence of brainstorms for ways to recruit for and promote the Stony Brook Press, and everybody else seems to be too busy intercessing to care, at this point. So when I noticed the day before it happened that orientation was beginning for incoming Spring freshman and transfer students, I decided to spring into action. I managed to corral a couple of fellow editors (despite a mysterious foot/throat ailment), pictured above, and get to the grim but hardy task of passing out the last issue of the Press. There were a lot of them. Issues of the Press. Still sitting on the loading dock to which they were delivered by the printer. Six weeks ago. Last semester. Not the best sign.

But, in fairness, they were pretty heavy.

The key to getting oriented students to taking the paper is in your approach. The last thing you want to do is say, "Do you want a copy of the Stony Brook Press?" This seems polite, to polite people, but it allows ample space for a conception of the world in which your new friends do not, in fact, want a copy. (Also, it is bad to use the word newspaper. College students find this off-putting because they are dumb and do not read). More than ½ of them will weigh their options and decide that, no, they do not want a copy. What you want to do is you want to give them the old, "Don't forget your copy of the Stony Brook Press." Then they thank you like you just did them a big favor. Which is appropriate, because you did.

It's also good to set up a shady little corner just outside the perimeter of the official orientation activities and get them on their way out. Then, tired and confused, it is easy for them to confuse your "don't forget this" line with some sort of official distribution of critical new student materials. Which is appropriate, because it might as well be.