BY: MORGAN KILGER, NEWS EDITOR
“Seeing this magazine come to life has been so unbelievable,” said Riley Conners, an adolescent education and English major.
On Tuesday, April 23, HerCampus at SBU released its first magazine. This magazine highlights 25 of the HerCampus contributors, the articles range from relationships with mothers to fanfiction.
“It shows everyone’s passions, even if it’s just a fraction of them,” said Claire Fisher, a co-president of HerCampus and a junior communication, social justice and advocacy major.
She said the idea for the magazine came from one of her roommates. Fisher liked the idea and aspired to make it a reality.
Planning for the magazine started in July 2023 and obtaining permission to run the magazine was challenging.
“There are a lot of copyright and permission hoops we had to jump through like asking HerCampus headquarters and getting a printing budget from Dean [Aaron] Chimbel,” said Fisher. “That doesn’t even count the actual article writing and editing along with page layouts.”
Nine months later, the magazine was published.
Many contributors of HerCampus were published in the magazine. Sofi Schwarzmueller, a sophomore English major, was one of these girls published. After Schwarzmueller transferred to Bonaventure from Miami University in the fall, she quickly found a sisterhood at HerCampus — something she had long desired.
“[HerCampus] are the friendly faces I see around campus; they are the home-away-from-home I have so desired, and ultimately, they are the people I dedicate the words of my articles to,” said Schwarzmueller.
Schwarzmueller found her voice with her HerCampus articles — she can write about things she enjoys without the fear of being criticized by others.
“Her Campus allows me to escape the voice in my head. I write about my music taste, my most recent book conquest, words of advice and people I have found inspiring,” said Schwarzmueller. “I just write, without the fear that what I’m saying isn’t profound enough, [it] isn’t worth being put down onto paper.”
Schwarzmueller expresses her interest in music within her magazine article.
In the article “A Love Letter to My Favorite Song,” Schwarzmueller expresses her love for her favorite track: “Cigarette Daydreams” by Cage the Elephant.
Schwarzmueller chose this article to publish because of how important music is for her.
“For our first-ever print edition, I really wanted to write about something deeply important to me, and that is music,” said Schwarzmueller. “I feel so lucky to have grown up around family and friends who bolstered my love for various genres, and this is something I wanted to make sure my article reflected.”
However, Schwarzmueller believes words don’t do justice to her love for the song. She still wants people to know how much music impacts her everyday life.
“Though words will never be enough and will always fail to capture exactly my experience with the song, I wanted to do my best to share this love with everyone,” said Schwarzmueller.
Only some HerCampus contributors wrote articles for the magazine; however, everyone was just as excited about the magazine as those who did publish it.
Conners said she was amazed to watch the magazine unfold before her eyes and loved watching everyone come together to make history for HerCampus.
“It shows that girls can work together and work hard towards a goal to make history,” said Conners.
To celebrate the magazine’s launch, HerCampus hosted a party in the Walsh Amphitheater.
“The launch party was a fun cherry on top of our release day,” said Fisher.
At the launch party, seven student readers read their article and snacks were available. Fisher said they had fun with the party, from the snacks provided to the decorations.
“We bought a bunch of fun pink decorations and simply had fun with it, especially the Shirley Temple bar,” said Fisher.
Fisher’s goal for HerCampus is to do something like the magazine once every academic year. She aims for the spring semester.
“My goal is for HerCampus to do something like this at least once a year. Once a semester seems a bit ambitious for right now, but who knows,” said Fisher. “In the immediate, it would be great to have a spring print issue every year. The spring is a great time to celebrate.”
kilgermi22@bonaventure.edu
