Edna Grant
Staff Writer
Todd Halvorsen, the Higher Education Manager for The New York Times, visited Idaho State University this past September to offer the school an opportunity to participate in their nationwide program which aims to provide free subscriptions to all university faculty and students.
Halvorsen met with Jasun Carr and Zac Gershberg from the ISU Communication Department to discuss features the potential partnership could have. These features include all-digital access to The New York Times, and in different languages, in order to be used by students and staff in all departments of the university.
“It’s a handy tool,” said Gershberg. “It’s a respectable public source, instead of just googling something, that covers business and science and could benefit research in those areas.”
The Times provides curated curricular ideas on how our content can be easily incorporated into many areas of study, according to Halvorsen.
The New York Times’ education department, founded in 1932, has aimed to provide depth in their journalism, to foster student success, according to Halvorsen.
“The Times is unique because it gives its newsroom of 1,600 journalists (the most in history) the support and resources they need to create important, impactful and independent journalism that makes a difference in the world,” Halvorsen said.
Those journalists all received this support through programs like the one Halvorsen discussed with ISU faculty. Schools in surrounding areas, such as Weber State and Brigham Young University – Idaho, have benefitted from The Times’ Institutional Access program.
ISU faculty have been collaborating to create a formal request to be sent to President Kevin Satterlee, detailing the annual cost of the institutional access progress as well as the benefits and concerns–one of the largest concerns, of course, being the cost.
As free things often do, the access offered to ISU comes with an initial price tag. According to Gershberg, the school would be charged an annual fee of just under $5,000 dollars.
“The way they come up with that number is that they are able to calculate how many people with ISU addresses already have Times memberships,” said Gershberg.
That number is roughly 120, and in order to not lose out on the money the newspaper already makes from them, they asked for a yearly payment to cover those membership fees.
“The price for 120 memberships, to cover a university somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people,” said Gershberg. “That’s a lot of students, faculty, and staff.”
The Department of Communication, Media and Persuasion said they would be willing to provide $1,000 to contribute to that annual fee. They believe the program has the potential for providing ISU with a more informed and engaged campus, where other news agencies can only provide a mere fraction of the content, at a greater price than what is being offered to the community.
Looking forward, Gershberg and Halvorsen expect to receive an official answer to the request sent to Satterlee in the next couple of weeks. If approved, the process of providing this access to The New York Times could take up to five business days, according to Halvorsen.
