The Sentinel has spent 56 years providing students with hands-on media experience while pursuing their degrees since the first issue’s release on Oct. 3, 1966.
The headlines for the first print issue featured stories following the official opening of Kennesaw Junior College in 1966. The first fall semester welcomed over 1,000 students and 37 faculty members distributed across the divisions of Social Studies, Humanities, Natural Science and Physical Education, according to the newspaper.
According to a KSU press release, KSU welcomed 43,000 students for the fall 2022 semester. KSU reported a total of 1,297 full-time faculty members during the fall 2020 semester, according to the 2020-2021 Fact Book. The university now houses 11 colleges offering more than 180 degrees and student programs.
Due to delays caused by labor strikes during the construction of the KJC campus, classes occurred at the Southern Technical Institute within the use of various open spaces on campus, according to Thomas Scott’s History of Kennesaw State University. This was 49 years before the merging of the renamed Southern Polytechnic State University and the KSU Kennesaw campus.
Horace Sturgis held the role of the first president of KJC upon its opening. In a published “Letter from the President,” Sturgis thanked the Southern Technical Institute for their hospitality and wished KJC students a successful start to their semester. On Oct. 13, Kathy Schwaig’s investiture ceremony will officially name her as KSU’s sixth president.
KJC also offered students academic scholarships, loans and part-time employment opportunities on campus as forms of financial aid. According to the 2002-2003 KSU Fact Book, tuition at the time was $70 per quarter for full-time students; part-time students paid $6 for each credit hour attended. In today’s dollar, that would be $584.50 per quarter and $50.10 per credit hour, according to an inflation calculator tool.
According to KSU’s Fiscal Services and Bursar’s office, tuition for the fall 2022 through summer 2023 semesters ranges between $853.40 and $3,449 for in-state undergraduate students taking between 1 to 15 credit hours. Out-of-state students can expect tuition pricing between $1,322.33 and $10,483 for the same credit hour range. A total of $668 in student fees is included in tuition costs for both categories. These calculations do not include costs such as room, board, textbooks and other personal expenses.
The Sentinel’s first issue claimed that they hoped to release two print issues on a monthly basis. The Marietta Daily Journal provided space for the typesetting of the issues that were later printed by the Cox Printing Company. The newspaper’s staff consisted of seven total editorial positions: editor-in-chief, associate editor, business manager, feature editor, news editor, photographer and typist. Two faculty advisors oversaw the production of the newspaper.
The Sentinel currently releases weekly stories on our official website and a biweekly print issue. The paper’s operation center is the newsroom located in the Carmichael Student Center, room 162-B. Greater Georgia Printers of Crawford, Georgia currently provides the newspaper’s print services as of Vol. 56 Issue 2. There are 10 student-held positions on the editorial staff including the editor-in-chief, managing editor, news editor, opinion editor, arts and living editor, sports editor, engagement director, two production managers and one faculty advisor.
The Sentinel thanks KSU’s Student Media program and Strategic Communications department for their ongoing support. We thank our staff of writers and photographers who dedicate their time to making the publication’s content possible. We thank each student who has taken the time to engage with our online stories, peruse our available print editions and especially those that have entertained our distribution day shenanigans. Special thanks to KSU Archives and Special Collections for their diligent work in preserving the history of the paper through the Scholarly Online Access Repository digital database. We hope to continue our progress as an ethical, reliable and responsible outlet of information for both campuses. Cheers to 56 years of progress and to the start of our 57th!
