I sat down this week with Ellie Dovich, (junior, communication) to talk about her experience as the lead yearbook editor.
What do you do as the Cast/Cardinal editor at AUSA?
I schedule meetings with staff to go over page layouts, the photos we’re getting, and other stuff like that. I also take photos. Since we don’t have a lot of photographers, everyone who can help out needs to take pictures. With AUSA, I help set up and take down events when I can. I don’t do any event planning since I’m in charge of the yearbook, but if the event team needs help, I do what I can.
As the lead editor of the yearbook, is your job mostly delegation or do you do any hands-on creative work?
I mean, I’ve been going around taking photos. Like I said, we need as many people taking photos as we can—even some of our graphic designers are taking photos. I don’t really do anything with page layouts, though. I’m not a graphic designer, so I leave that to the people who have taken classes on it and are really passionate about it. Mostly, I schedule and run meetings and make sure that we’re going in the right direction with the yearbook.
What are the different parts of creating a yearbook?
Well, I’m still figuring that out—it’s my first time doing anything like this. So far, though, I have been trying to make sure that our photos are representing the experiences of the entire student body. We shouldn’t only be taking pictures of people on stage, or people running events, but also who is in the crowd and how they’re reacting. Really, the yearbook should be a record of what living on campus was like. It’s to record the day-to-day living here in 2022: what we looked like, what we were wearing, what we did, who went, those kinds of things. A big piece of the job is making sure that we’re getting coverage of all these things, even if it’s just people sitting around in the Gazebo studying. Because that’s what we were doing, right? Another big piece is reviewing page layouts; checking how many pages sections are going to be, if we have enough coverage for those sections, and what to do if we don’t. There’s not really a standard for how Andrews yearbooks are made; it’s mostly up to the editor and their team to work together to make what the yearbook looks like every year. For us this year, we decided to focus on the pictures and other visual elements of the yearbook, rather than including long written sections like people have done in the past.
What is your vision for the yearbook this year?
My overall vision is that in ten, twenty, or even thirty or fourty years, people can bring out this yearbook and confidently say, “This is what it looked like to be on campus, what events we had, what we did,” those kinds of things. I want people to look back and say, “That’s what I remember. That was my college experience.”
What are the best and worst parts of the job?
The best parts of the job are going to the events and taking pictures, getting to capture people being people and having fun with their friends. I really enjoy working with the team, and it’s been really cool to see the page layouts come together. Even though the yearbook isn’t completely finished yet, it is really exciting to see the pieces form the backbone of what the yearbook will be. On the other hand, it’s kind of difficult to manage information, make sure that people are getting things in on time, making meetings that work with everyone’s schedule—that’s not as fun.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.