Tennessee Tech celebrating a century of history preserved through its student yearbook, The Eagle, which first began documenting campus life in 1926.
Media Department Chair Brenda Wilson said the original publication functioned as a hybrid between a newspaper, magazine, and yearbook. Wilson said only a few physical copies of the inaugural edition remain in existence today.
“It is like a time capsule, a snapshot of that moment on campus,” Wilson said. “And even now, when we dedicate, say, the new stadium this year, or Wilmore Way last year, and the different new installations on campus, the buildings and all that, it’s just a way to preserve that campus memory.”
Wilson said the earliest editions were much smaller than the current version and featured a more intimate look at the university when it was known as Tennessee Polytechnic Institute. The books included photographs of every faculty member and student, along with detailed statistics and data about the school.
“They went into great detail in those early editions to put even like the people’s majors, what their hobbies and interests were of the students at that time,” Wilson said. “And so we don’t go into that much detail now in the print.”
Wilson said the publication has documented major milestones, including the transition from a polytechnic school to a university and societal shifts during wartime. The archives also reveal changes in commercial trends, such as the presence of alcohol and cigarette advertisements that were common in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Actually, now the trend is gaining momentum back toward the print, because people have recognized that it isn’t always a good way to archive things completely digital,” Wilson said. “A lot of campuses are bringing back their print publication and have been for a few years.”
Wilson said the university previously experimented with a CD-ROM format for nearly a decade due to printing costs. However, those digital records became difficult to access because the technology required to play them is no longer convenient or widely available.
“What librarians will call ‘digital rot’ and that we can’t always handily access, we can’t conveniently access digital content the way we can print, where you can’t just pull it off the shelf and thumb through it,” Wilson said. “Like right now, I’m looking at the 1926 printed version, and I didn’t have to log in or have a device charged and waiting to do that.”
Wilson said the yearbook serves as a record of history told specifically from the perspective of the students living it. She said the process of creating the book helps students sharpen storytelling skills that remain valuable in their future careers.
“It’s great that we have reached this milestone, and I think it’s an honor to have been that much of a part of campus history,” Wilson said.