The Exponent

At a faculty meeting on September 15, 1902, less than two weeks after Northern opened its doors, the subject was raised of "whether the school should establish a Journal." After discussion President Koehler appointed two faculty members, Fred Smith, who taught science, and S. C. Hartranft, who taught history and literature, "to meet a committee of students to discuss the founding of the school journal." Smith had been on the editorial board of the Mankato State Normal School, had served on the college paper and a magazine at the University of Minnesota, and had established a school paper at the high school in Boise, Idaho. When he and Hartranft, together with a group of students, produced the first issue of The Industrial-Normal Exponent the following month, a tradition was born. Since then the Exponent has touched the lives of everyone connected with Northern, whether student, faculty, staff, or visitor. Despite occasional criticism, it is an old, indispensable friend. For nearly a century it has chronicled campus life and informed the community of activities and changes in the institution. Not least, as a glance at the endnotes of this volume shows, without the Exponent, our knowledge of Northern's past would be hopelessly diminished.

For the first fifteen years the publication was known as The Industrial-Normal Exponent.

The name of the paper was "derived from the Latin verb 'exponere,' to put out, or to set forth. An exponent, then, is that which stands as an . . . interpreter, a representative." Thus, the goal of the Exponent was "to interpret and explain the inner life of the school, and to stand as a representative of the work and play of the students." A 1924 item in the paper explained that the name should be pronounced "Ex-PO-nent." Originally, it was published as a 6-by-9-inch booklet of fourteen to twenty pages with a subscription fee of fifty cents per year for seven to eight issues. In December 1902 the price per copy was set at ten cents. By December 1903 the price of the Exponent had risen to seventy-five cents for a one-year subscription. Some issues that year were as large as forty-eight pages. In a meeting with the faculty in December 1905, President Koehler discussed how he wanted the newspaper distributed. Each month there should be one copy on every table in the library, evidently to make it available for those who did not purchase the paper. The subscription price of the Exponent remained at seventy-five cents.

In September 1903 the faculty decided that "the publication of the journal be continued this year," and President Koehler appointed a committee to "investigate the purchase of a press and necessary equipment for the publication, with a view of making it a part of the manual training department." No further mention was made of this idea, and the Exponent continued to be printed off-campus through the present.

While the Exponent has always been Northern's official publication of record, it has not always looked the same. Through the 1914-15 year the Exponent remained a 6-by-9 booklet published seven or eight times a year. The issues, however, had gotten progressively longer, so for two years, starting in 1915-16, publication shifted to semi-monthly. Without doubt the most important change to the Exponent occurred at the beginning of the 1917-18 school year. Its name was shortened to The Exponent and it became a true newspaper, approximately 10 by 13½ inches (all sizes are approximate because the existing issues have been trimmed for binding), with usually four pages of four columns per each weekly issue. A high-quality coated (glossy) paper was used. In December 1920 the size of the newspaper increased to 12 by 17 inches with five columns, and in September 1922 to about 15 by 21½ inches with six columns. (By comparison, the Aberdeen American News in 2000 was about 13½ by 22 3/4 inches untrimmed.) As a budgetary move, in June 1933 the format decreased to about 12½ by 18½ inches with five columns, and cheaper uncoated paper was used. A further diminution occurred in September 1937 when the paper adopted a five-column 12 by 15-inch format, though most issues contained six pages. The following year the paper increased in size slightly to around 12 by 17½ inches with usually four pages of five columns each. With slight modifications, this remained the size of the paper through the present. In 2000 the Exponent was about 11 3/8 by 18 inches untrimmed with usually twelve to sixteen pages per issue. The weekly issuance of the paper lasted from 1917 until the 1940s. At that time the paper became a biweekly publication. In the sixties it again became a weekly, and in the 1980s reverted back to biweekly publication.

In the first years there were occasional color drawings and photographs of animals or flowers inserted as a frontispiece. These disappeared once the Exponent shifted to a newspaper format. Not until 1974 did color photographs return to paper. In that year there was a front-page photo of a Native American in celebration of Indian Awareness week. The use of color illustrations increased through the 1980s and 1990s.

For the first nine years the newspaper was funded by individual sales and subscriptions, advertising, and general college funds. In February 1908 faculty met to discuss the possibility of putting on a play to raise money to improve the Exponent. In March discussion of the idea was postponed until the following year but was never again raised. Beginning in the fall of 1911 a $1.50 charge per semester was levied on all students to help finance the Exponent, sports, and public speaking contests. Since then the Exponent has been funded through the Student Activity Fee, advertising, and, to a very minor extent, through subscriptions.

The May 1915 Exponent detailed expenditures for 1914-15. Expenses for the paper totaled $772.68: $586.70 for printing, $118.04 for advertising commissions, $61.41 for pictures and cuts, $4.00 for prizes awarded for puzzles solved, and $2.53 for postage costs. The sole receipts of the Exponent were derived from advertising: $559.10. The $213.52 shortfall between expenditures and receipts was made up for from the Student Activity Fee, which in that year collected $1,685.

Since its beginning, the paper has always carried advertisements for local Aberdeen businesses. In the first fifteen years, while the Exponent followed the booklet format, advertisements appeared at the beginning and end of each issue and ranged in size from a full page to an eighth of a page. At an October 1910 faculty meeting, Exponent money matters were discussed, including how much local businesses should be charged to advertise in the paper. It was decided that a full-page advertisement would cost five dollars, a half-page three dollars, one-fourth of a page two dollars, and an eighth of a page one dollar. The students who solicited the ads received a ten-percent commission of their total sales.

The content of Exponent advertisements has changed to reflect the times. In 1912 the ads for the paper were fairly straightforward and rarely had any pictures. When there were pictures, they were line drawings rather than photographs. The ads were placed at the front and end of the publication, separated from the articles and columns, and usually consumed about eight pages. The ads were primarily for local businesses such as clothing stores, movie theaters, grocery stores, and local doctors. Beginning with the November 1912 issue the first color advertisement was run, for Ward Owsley Chocolates, manufactured in Aberdeen. With the shift to the newspaper format most ads appeared in the lower right-hand corner of the second and later pages, still with an emphasis on local businesses. Up until 1961 the paper had advertisements only for Coke products, not Pepsi. The first ad for Pepsi appeared in November 1961 stating, "Now it's Pepsi for those who think young." In 1962 there was a full-page ad for a car dealership in conjunction with a cigarette ad, advertising a sweepstake. This was the first time the Exponent had any type of cigarette ad. By 1982, reflecting changing times, the paper had expanded their ads to include local bars.

To a much greater degree than in recent years, the early Exponent was Northern's publication of record. At a faculty meeting in January 1903, "President Koehler announced that the next issue of the Exponent would be used as the catalog of the school." Initially in every issue of the paper, and later only at the beginning of the school year in September, a list of the faculty was published. There were weekly menus for the dining hall and lists of classes offered for the semester. In January 1906 a list of the incoming freshmen was published as well. Graduation lists were always a staple. The importance of the Exponent to the community is demonstrated by the fact that for a dozen years it was the official journal of the Brown County Teacher's Association.

The origins of the Pasque, Northern's yearbook, were connected to the Exponent. The Exponent of May 1904 and each May thereafter until 1909 was subtitled The Junior Book and had a specially designed cover. Included in these issues were the history of the school, pictures of and stories about each of the faculty members, paragraphs about each senior and junior, and a column about the sophomore and freshmen. In May 1905 class pictures were added, as well as photographs of the athletic teams and alumni information. Essays or speeches given by the regents or founders were printed. By the spring of 1909, NNIS had grown large enough that The Junior Book separated from the Exponent and became an independent publication. It was named The Pasque after the South Dakota state flower, and a class seal and motto were adopted to give the book an identity. The Pasque preserved the moments of each school year with photographs from every department and class. From the spring of 1909 it was been published every year, except in 1918, when students chose to donate the allocated funds to the World War I war effort instead, and from 1943 through 1946, for similar reasons during World War II.

Another major distinguishing characteristic of the early Exponent was its emphasis on education. Modern newspapers may be informative, but one would not expect to find in one, for example, seven-pages of instructions on how to use a Music Slide Rule, as appeared in the April-May 1914 Exponent. Other typical stories dealt with matters such as "The Prevention of Disease" and the problem of liquor consumption.

The publication also had articles and columns on every club and department on campus during that time. There were entertainment sections and a section for the student activities on and off campus. At this time one could read anything from jokes to editorials to what any particular person did on campus. There was quite a bit of what today would be called gossip. For example, a 1915 column called "Campus Talk" discussed a rumor about a Japanese student who evidently had written a letter to the school president requesting consideration for admission. Also, paralleling similar columns in the local community papers, "Locals" reported what instructors, students, and alumni were doing in their spare time. From 1915 Exponents: "Miss Nina Conway '10, of Orient, visited with her sister, Verna recently," and "Laura Ingalls spent the weekend at her home in Athol."

The early Exponent was filled with humor and generally entertaining fare. Some examples can be found in the columns called "Lost" and "Want Ads": "WANTED-Time to read letter from home. -Student." Another joke column was called "Have You Heard This One." It reported the amusing utterances of members of the campus community. An example from 1912: "Absentminded Professor Poore-'I see I've got my hat on. Now, I wonder if I was going out or coming in.'"

In the early years the Exponent had puzzles in the paper with rewards of up to one dollar for whoever could solve them first. One popular puzzle showed a photo of a new professor on campus with a reward of one dollar for whoever could guess who it was.

In the early years the Exponent also entertained its readers through poems or jingles provided by the students. The paper asked students to submit a five- to six-line jingle about the faculty, with the inducement of a one-dollar payoff. In November 1914 this cute little poem was submitted to the paper:

That we who wait

Procrastinate,

We know, not always, to

Our Sorrow

It doesn't pay

To do today

The things we must

Undo tomorrow.

After switching to the newspaper format the longer, educational articles disappeared, but the humor and the detailed reporting of almost every aspect of campus life continued. Looking at any issue of the Exponent from the 1920s and 1930s, one is struck by the intensity and depth of local reporting, how every story, every column, every joke, and even every advertisement had a local emphasis.

Up through the World War II era the Exponent kept its sense of humor. A column from 1939 called "Quips" offered one-liners such as "The average woman has a vocabulary of only 800 words. It's a small stock but think of the turnover." Another article from 1939, written by some young men on campus, was called "Fluttering Hearts": "Girls!!! Why freeze while Northern has Bachelors? ELITE BACHELOR ESCORT SERVICE. For particulars see James Gerber, Howard Some or Dick Haddow. Phones 6212, 4304 or 6510." "Small Talk" was another column mixing humor with rumor. The June 1940 edition of the Exponent provides an example of this: "'Twinkle Toes' Hurst Williams has been 'waiting at the gate for Katy."

To be interesting and intelligible, such "facts," as well as the mundane material of the "Locals" column needs to be connected to people one knows. After World War II, just as the community of Aberdeen became more diverse, so too did the community at Northern. A student's circle of acquaintances narrowed, and these small-talk elements of the Exponent became a thing of the past.

The Exponent continued to deal with social issues, but in a different manner. For example, an article from 1966, called "It's a Man's World," discussed the lower status of woman and blacks: "Women and Negros are second class citizens . . . most of them [women] will end up in a role basically satisfying to a male counterpart." The next month the Exponent published another article called "Reason: For a Husband." This article discussed women's reason for going to college, stating, "There's a widespread belief on campuses that women students are in college for one reason, to find a husband." Yet both of these stories lacked something that was common to all stories in the earlier Exponent, a connection to the campus. There is no indication that they were written locally, that someone you knew from the community was speaking to you directly. One may compare Professor Seymour's summaries of current events from the late 1910s to the later story, clearly pulled from the national wire services, on the assassination of President John Kennedy. Beginning in the later 1990s there was a turn away from these canned stories, and a much greater emphasis on student columnists, whether dealing with local or national issues.

Another form of information found in the post-war Exponent that is almost totally absent from earlier issues is material unflattering to the school. Certainly, various student gripes appear from time to time, but it is remarkable that two of the most dramatic incidents in Northern's history, the student strike of the early 1930s and the VanderWalker murder case of the early 1940s, were never mentioned in the Exponent. One must go to the local Aberdeen papers to read about them. We may compare this to a 1968 letter to the editor in which a student, Al Silverstein, claimed that Clark Swisher had publicly embarrassed him. Allegedly the coach told the student in front of other athletes that he could not participate in Northern sports unless he stopped being a "kook" and abandoned his vocal opposition to the Vietnam War.

Another traditional element that became increasingly rare in the post-war Exponent is humor. As corny as they might be to modern tastes, they were a staple of every issue in the early decades. By the sixties, humor was relegated to cartoons, the ramblings of columnists, and the April Fools' issue, which became a sort of tradition. In 1966 the staff put together what they called the X-PO. In this edition ad pictures were upside down, page numbers were random and extremely high, and many things were amusingly misspelled. This same type of humor appeared in an April 1967 edition of the paper. This time it was called the X-P-Nut. In 1989 it was the Sexponent. According to one of its articles a pair of Northern students who could not handle the pressure of student life were found on Swisher Field dressed as Oscar Meyer wieners and humming the theme song while gently swaying. Northern Psychology professors and majors were called to the scene to cure the students. One student, Steven O. Hempe, recovered on his own three hours later. "It got to be too much, y'know," said Hempe. The last thing that he remembered was watching Saturday morning cartoons and hearing the Oscar Meyer theme song. The other unidentified student was taken to the head of the psychology department, Dr. Rost.

Student involvement in the Exponent has been limited since the beginning. Student participation in the paper was constantly fluctuating. In the October 12, 1912, edition the editor ran an ad, requesting that students provide stories. In the October 1914 issue there was a similar piece again asking for student participation. Suggestions were solicited on how to improve the paper.

The Exponent constantly asked for students to contribute to the paper. Again, in November 1916 the Exponent asked clubs to contribute to the paper. A drop box for this purpose was located in the Administration building. In May 1916 the staff of the Exponent again wrote to the students saying, "The plan is to make the Exponent next year better than ever before, but one thing is necessary to the success of the paper which the staff will not be able to furnish-the united support of the student body."

One possible explanation for the Exponent constantly begging for student involvement is that it was rather understaffed. For the first sixteen years of the Exponent, the staff numbered under twenty students with the exception of 1915 when twenty-seven students produced the Exponent. By 1926 the level of student participation in the Exponent increased. One year prior the Exponent had a staff of only thirty-eight. In 1926, the Exponent had a staff of sixty-seven. This rise in participation was due to the journalism class. "The Exponent is directly in charge of a class in journalism." For the next ten years an Exponent of at least 15,000 words was produced every week. The Exponent saw its greatest level of student involvement in 1927 with a staff consisting of eighty-two students participating through the journalism class. The eighty-two students were divided among the three quarters-fall, winter, and spring. Working on the Exponent allowed them to develop their writing abilities and at the same time to earn college English credit.

During this period the responsibility for overseeing the publication of each issue rotated among the journalism students. Ultimate responsibility for the paper, however, remained with the faculty advisors, as was the case from the beginning (this is why, during the early years, we read of "student-editors," rather than a student "editor-in-chief"). During the 1937-38 school year a dramatic departure from this practice occurred. In October 1937 the first student editor was named. From that time through the present, the Exponent has been a student-run publication.

During the Second World Was staffing issues again became a problem. The Exponent sought its readers' tolerance and understanding. In 1951, the Exponent asked its readers, "What would you like to see in the Exponent-huh???" One student's response was "It's too dull, give us more features, give us more gossip, give us more cartoons, give us less of that dull news." In 1953 the Exponent published an article stating that "The Exponent will produce criticisms and questions." The next year this same article was published to warn students they might not always be happy with what they read and to entice students to work on the paper. With the enrollment increasing dramatically in the mid-1950s, there was hope that the bi-monthly paper would become a larger and better weekly paper. In 1955 the Exponent again reminded students that "this paper needs more contributions from you students." Responding to a request for more timely news coverage, the editors humorously asked for fortunetellers so they could print the news before it appeared in the Aberdeen American News.

Some readers remained bored with the paper: "the Exponent, the voice of the college, remains the same year after tedious year." In 1957 the paper acknowledged problems with the paper: "There has been criticism over the years concerning the quality of our paper. One group even advocated changing the name of the paper from 'Exponent' to the 'Impotent.'" The editors conceded that "the Exponent could never have been a first rate paper," and offered many explanations for why it was viewed as "impotent." The staff were operating within the confines of a journalism class. They were inexperienced and the editors were reluctant to tackle controversy. The administration was indifferent to the paper. The student body was unsupportive. The paper only had five people working on it. It was published bi-monthly. The editors felt that producing a paper weekly would provide fresher, more pertinent news. They spoke of the need for a more sympathetic administration and for a larger staff.

As a reflection of dissatisfaction with the Exponent, a number of alternative newspapers were published by students during the 1950s and 1960s. Fifteen issues of The Ape: "The Newspaper With Hair On Its Chest" are extant from the 1956-57 school year. Each issue consists of several 8 ½- by 11-inch sheets of paper stapled together. It sold for a nickel to cover printing costs. As is common with such publications, many of the articles in The Ape deal with the need for an alternative newspaper on campus. Among other articles was a series investigating the price of milk in the Den. In the later sixties, there was another brief flurry of unofficial student-produced publications. With a format and content similar to The Ape, these publications illustrate the student activism of the era as much as displeasure with the Exponent. A single issue of So What? is extant from December 1966 and a single issue of The Enquirer: A Student Paper for Freedom of Expression exists from around 1966. The longer-lived Sans Mots: Northern's Free Press was published irregularly from December 1968 through January 1970.

The Exponent continued to ask its readers for participation. In 1975 the Exponent had only eleven staff members. By 1980, it appeared as though the staff had become more frustrated than ever with the lack of student involvement. The editor stated, "Students are quick to complain about how unprofessional a publication looks, yet they are not willing to cooperate in measures which would improve the quality of these same publications." The staff knew there were problems. In 1982 the editor spoke of a lack of staff and complaints involving campus activities never reported on, articles that had been cut, misspellings, poorly-written articles, incorrect identifications, and other mistakes. The editor responded, "If you think you can do a better job, go ahead and try it." In December of the same year the staff wrote, "The Exponent has received complaint after complaint with no offer of help."

By November 1982 the Exponent was facing major change because of staffing issues. "There may not be any student publications next year, if the Media Board accepts the recommendation of the faculty advisor to the student publication." At this time the Media Board, which oversaw student publications, was in the midst of forming a task force "to determine the future of student publication," a statement referring mainly to the Exponent.

In December 1982 the Exponent once again tried to get students involved. This time it was more desperate than ever before. In opposing the Media Board the staff told the students they were in need of their support, approval, acceptance and constructive criticism, but not complaints. They ran a poll soliciting student input on whether the Exponent was doing an adequate job and whether it should be continued.

The frustration of the staff was high. The editor made this clear by writing, "Of the 2,716 students here at Northern, approximately 25 students are currently working for the Exponent or the Pasque. Of these 25 students, 9 are working for both publications at one time or another." The following month the results from the poll were in. Of the people who returned the poll only two percent felt that the paper should fold. "One frequent comment the Exponent received was that the readers would like to see more humorous articles."

By December 1983, Dr. David Newquist, the faculty advisor to the Exponent, received a letter from Michael J. McCafferty, the president of the Student Association. In this letter Mr. McCafferty stated that the Student Association had by unanimous vote approved a recommendation that the funding of the paper be frozen for the spring semester of 1984. McCafferty stated that "personal [sic] problems effected [sic] the quality of the publication." He also stated that the students who worked on the paper, or who potentially could work on the paper, were not committed enough, and there were no "support systems" to encourage people to join the staff. He complained the editorials served only to "downgrade this institution," referring to Northern, and asserted that this discouraged students from participating on the paper. "The Exponent has become the butt of many jokes during the regents [sic] meeting." Other reasons for freezing the funding were, McCafferty continued, that the articles contained inaccurate information and many rumors. McCafferty also believed that inadequate coverage of state issues which could affect Northern was another possible reason for the minimal interest students had in the Exponent. He also felt that quizzes and poems posing as humorous items were inappropriate.

As faculty advisor, Dr. Newquist felt very passionately toward the production of the Exponent. He wrote back to McCafferty, "The numerous literacy errors, the statements of ignorance, and the misrepresentations contained in the letter raise serious questions about the integrity of information and the quality of thought characterized by you in the letter." Newquist asserted that the recommendation for freezing funding did not follow proper procedure. Any changes to editorial policy were to be sent to the Media Board. Newquist also pointed out that by freezing the funding for the Exponent the Student Association was "taking action, which can be regarded as censorship." After a series of meetings regarding the Student Association's recommendation, the Media Board decided to keep the paper in production. President Brown commented, "Any institution of higher education has a moral obligation to provide a student publication."

Still, the Exponent faced problems with its staff. In an October 1984 edition the headline read, "Exponent Changes Hands." One of the co-editors of the paper resigned, Dr. Newquist wrote, because of "lack of quality student commitment to publications, lack of direction and planning from the highest levels of administration at NSC, incompetence of the co-editor, a technical advisor (me) who proved to be not objective, and inadequate time to do her classes justice." The following year another editor publicly resigned. In a letter to the editor Lisa M. Dosch, a former editor, wrote, "It was once said that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Our weakest link has, to me, proven to be our trust in one another at the Exponent." The lack of student involvement is still evident in more recent times.

The criticism the Exponent has received over the years has not stopped people from reading it. In 1939 a poll was taken. With a staff of only twelve students, the Exponent's audience was around 2,500 readers. Total academic year enrollment at this time was around 850, and summer enrollment was around 450. This would indicate that the Exponent was read not only by students and faculty and staff, but by citizens of Aberdeen as well. By 1967 the paper's audience had increased to around four thousand readers.

The Exponent has received occasional recognition through the years. In June 1904 the Exponent was recognized by the Aberdeen American News as a "model publication in every particular." By January 1913 the press of the Aberdeen American recognized the Exponent as the best school monthly publication. In 1924 the paper shared first place in an award given by the South Dakota College Press Association. More recently, in the 1999 Pasque, the Exponent was recognized as "the most improved organization on campus."

The Exponent has been the school newspaper for a century. It is the voice of the students heard throughout the school. The paper has seen many changes and will continue to see more as long as the times keep changing. It has been a significant part of NSU's history and will remain so in the next hundred years.