Ray Pesina, junior art major, picks up a copy of the USA Today in the Memorial Union Friday. The USA Today is provided free to students at ESU through the Colligate Readership Program. JONATHAN ELLIOT/THE BULLETIN

In modern times, there are many resources for students and others alike to gain access to local, regional, or national news.

Another resource that has become available to students this semester at Emporia State is the USA Today Readership Program. The new program offering USA Today started the first day of classes for this semester.

The program offers students the opportunity to pick up a daily issue of USA Today or The New York Times at various locations around campus.

The budget for the program is about $19,500, but ESU is only billed for the papers that students take off the racks. The university gets about 200 copies of the NYT and 150 copies of the USA Today.

“Copies of USA Today and The New York Times can be found in the William Allen White Library, the Koch Lounge of Cramer Hall and in the atrium in Visser Hall.” said Jonathan Krueger, president of Associated Student Government.

Papers are also available in the Memorial Union.

Each day, a USA Today representative places the papers in the rack and picks up previous issues. As of yesterday, 5,250 papers had been delivered and 1,773 had been picked up by the representative, Krueger said. The university is billed based on the number of papers that the representative picks up at the end of each day.

New copies of the papers will be available to students five days a week.

“The New York Times and USA Today are both daily papers and will be made available for every day class is in session with the exception of finals week,” Krueger said.

Faculty and students alike are showing a good response to the program.

“The indirect feedback we’ve received has been largely positive,” Krueger said. “Many people were happy to see the addition of USA Today and others were happy that we continued to offer The New York Times.”

Some professors are including the papers as part of their coursework for their classes.

“I only read The New York Times for my honors biology class, but I might continue to read it in the future,” said Sarah Windsor, freshman environmental biology major. “It is good to have the option available.”

The newspapers are funded partially by the provost, who works jointly with Associated Student Government to determine the price.

“The cost average for each student comes to about two dollars because of the funding we receive from the Provost office,” Krueger said. “This is a joint program between Associated Student Government and the Provost office, and together we try to keep costs as minimal as possible for students.”

Students look at the paper for more than just the pictures.

“I like to know what current events are and what is happening around me,” said Casey Bisnett, sophomore secondary social science major.

Grabbing a copy of USA Today or NYT means getting to the stand early in the day for some.

“We only receive a limited number of each paper on a daily basis. I’ve seen the shelves empty nearly every day.” Krueger said.

Offering two newspapers also allows for flexibility and convenience for many students.

“It is nice to have the papers available for students to grab if they want,” Windsor said.

Having two papers gives students the option to choose how they get their national news.

“Some students are partial to one paper or the other,” Krueger said. “We’ve previously only offered The New York Times.”

Students said they like having the option of picking up an actual paper as opposed to only being able to find news online.

“I will probably continue to pick up the paper in addition to reading news online,” Bisnett said.

Shawna Berry/The Bulletin

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