Stoutonia is coming up on its 107th birthday this March, since it’s conception in 1915 as a student-led news project, originally created as a work experience for advanced printing classes at the Stout institute.
Originally created by Mr. Chas E. Eslinger, a teacher of printing and primary handwork, the project was a collaborative effort from multiple departments with nominated seniors from each department selected to be the editorial staff.
The project was formed to fill the void growing from a rising need for a campus news source and has continued to provide a student news source comprising student voices over the last century.
Stoutonia has aided in University of Wisconsin-Stout’s history, as well, by not only creating a souvenir yearbook for the class of 1918, when the college was unable to create their own, but also dabbled in the creation of a literary magazine called “Young Wings” that lasted from 1933 to 1937 featuring a number of short stories, poetry, essays, alumni notes and other miscellaneous writings that were used as a way of expression for the time after the Great Depression and the lead up to World War two.
The name “Stoutonia” made its appearance around 1959, 44 years later, changing from the original name of the “Weekly News.”
Through the ages, Stoutonia maintained its presence as a student-run news organization and has been used to chronical student history since the beginning of Stout.
The UW-Stout Archives contain many of the volumes and editions of the Stoutonia newspaper as a way of showing the progression of time through the literary reports of students’ past.
Until recently, Stoutonia kept with the tradition of using a printed media to convey the activities and news on campus for students to read and learn about. Since 2019, we have hence moved to a more digital media to keep up with the times and increase student readership across campus by using a more accessible format, though still creating a semester print edition in homage to our hard-copy past.
We, here at Stoutonia, strive to bring student news and student voices to the forefront of our academic world and will continue to do so, as we have done for the last century. We aim to further our efforts and keep Stoutonia alive for years to come, and we hope you, the reader, continue to support us and invest in our efforts as we continue to move into the future.
Information pooled from past Stoutonia articles (Olivia Viktora (2018), Barbara Young (2014)) and other archives derived from UW-Stout Archives.
