November 14, 2005
After much anticipation, Hilltop Online made its presence known with the Nov. 18, 2005, issue.
Hilltop Online, the fourth student-generated publication arising from Corban’s growing journalism program, is designed to promote student interaction and provide a creative outlet for non-journalists, as well as report campus news, said Karen Willoughby, student publications adviser.
“We’re going to have polls, surveys, wacky questions – and some serious ones,” Willoughby said. “We’ve also got a lot of creative writers on this campus – poets, short story writers, even novelists, and besides that, some of the writing assignments turned in for Advanced Comp and other English classes are just astonishingly well-written. We wanted to provide an avenue of publication for all of this, leading of course with the standard journalistic news and features.”
Hilltop Online is to post by end-of-day each Friday, Willoughby said. She expressed appreciation for weeks of work by Corban’s IT and communications teams, as they worked together to bring Hilltop Online to life, and to Hilltop Online Editor Anastasia SooHoo Hui, who has waited patiently for the publication to be made ready for viewing.
In addition to content found only on Hilltop Online, the www.corban.edu/studentlife/hilltop website will include each week articles from the Hilltop Weekly Big Board, which might be the only publication of its type in the nation, the student publications adviser said.
“I’ve done a lot of searching, and I haven’t found another publication like the Big Board,” Willoughby said. “I’ve asked a lot of people from across the country, and everyone has said they don’t know of any others like it.”
The Big Board is an oversized bulletin board, on the second floor of Schimmel Hall, next to the Pepsi machine. Big Board Editor Courtney McLain each week places on it five campus news articles and opinion columns, three world news articles, all with photos, and a cartoon.
“What we want is a wide variety of articles, because there is so much going on, and the Big Board needs to reflect the news of the entire campus,” McLain said. “It’s a lot of work, but we have a good team of people who work really well together, all doing their part.”
The Big Board is in its third year as a low-cost, high-value student publication at Corban.
“We started it not only to provide the campus with a weekly source of news and information, but also to provide the J-Lab staff with weekly writing and photography assignments and deadlines, and weekly opportunities to practice desktop publishing,” Willoughby said. “This is tremendously valuable experience that will give the J-Lab staffers extra arrows in their quiver when they go job-hunting.”
Hilltop Online also is to include articles, features and opinions from Hilltop News, the award-winning monthly newspaper now in its fourth year of publication. The latest – Nov. 18 – issue of Hilltop News includes articles on depression on college campuses, current students’ perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement, and a profile of Charlie Cheney, who traverses the campus in a wheelchair, plus two pages of sports and much more, in a 12-page publication (four pages in color) that perhaps three times a year has an extra 12-page supplement.
Hilltop News also is available by subscription for parents, friends and Corban alumni. The $20 annual cost covers special handling for each of the seven issues, including the special sections. To subscribe write to Hilltop News Subscriptions, Corban College 5000 Deer Park Dr, Salem OR 97301.
The annual Hilltop Yearbook distributed during fall registration each year rounds out Corban’s four student publications. The 2005 book is available in limited quantities for $25, which is a break-even cost.
“Whether students are anticipating a future in journalism, business, education, government or probably any career, and certainly in vocational ministry, they’ll be able to put to good use the skills they learn in J-Lab,” Willoughby said. “Even the addition of Hilltop Online – it just ratchets up the skill set so that now we’re actively learning about, using and being a part of internet journalism as well as print journalism, and in God’s timing, radio and television journalism, and film-making.”
--By Adele Murphy | 
