Gettysburg College’s Yearbook ‘The Spectrum’ Reimagined
Spectrum Yearbook staff at the fall activities fair. (Abror Niyazmetov/The Gettysburgian)
By Ella Prieto, Managing Editor
Gettysburg College’s yearbook, The Spectrum, has served as a pillar of campus culture dating back to its founding in the 1890s. It captures each year’s activities, events and memories for the student body. On its pages, one can trace the history of various clubs, organizations, sports teams, Greek life and more. Despite The Spectrum’s important role, some feel as though it has faded into the background of student life at Gettysburg. Editor-in-Chief Piper Pokorny ’27 is striving to change that.
“I think [The Spectrum] is really important to the start of the College, and it’s a little sad that it kind of got forgotten. So I think my goal this year is to get people to remember,” said Pokorny. “The value of a yearbook is to show the memories of every year, capturing what was important that year or putting a name to a face. All students have so many memories of their time in college, and I feel like the yearbook really accentuates that and helps them to remember.”
Pokorny stepped into the editor-in-chief role of The Spectrum this fall and has aspirations to grow the Yearbook’s presence on campus in a variety of ways, including social media. The Spectrum’s Instagram page has been relaunched and Pokorny also plans to create a TikTok account. Part of their social media presence includes shouting out students.
“I just want people to tag or repost what we’re doing. Like, I want to tag students and let it be mainstream,” explained Pokorny.
Much of the work she is doing to build The Spectrum has also been person-to-person.
“I’ve been handing out stickers and just talking about it to people I know,” said Pokorny. “We’ll also have a table at the fall activities fair so that incoming first-years know who we are and what we do.”
The staff Pokorny already has are dedicated and exhibit the same enthusiasm about the yearbook that their editor does.
“I enjoy contributing to the community and gathering the memories [of campus],” said social media manager Doreen Madama ’27. She elaborated that it was also a great avenue to explore her joy of photography.
Marketing chair James Miller ’27 added “What I most enjoy about working in The Spectrum yearbook is definitely the people I work with and the people I get to meet because of Spectrum. It is extremely interesting to meet different people across campus whom I would have never thought to be peers with.”
He added that he hopes The Spectrum gains popularity among students “by fostering more interactions with student-led organizations and communities, inside and outside of school so they feel seen by the students, the school, and the community.”
The entire staff, especially Pokorny, is working towards leaving a legacy for The Spectrum behind, despite the majority of them only being underclassmen.
“[I want] to be the person who revived the yearbook and brought it back to what it once was like so many years ago,” said Pokorny. “I want things to look good, and I want people to know that and for our existence to come back to campus…. I want this to be something bigger than it has been.”
Interested students are invited to join The Spectrum’s staff by contacting Pokorny at pokopi01@gettysburg.edu.
This article originally appeared on page 15 of the No. 1 October 2024 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
