| Spring 2001: Marie Burns, Rebecca Hooley, Pete Wolkin
This semester in Evan William’s environmental studies 200 class, our footprint group helped publish the second annual Living Mosaic- Lewis and Clark’s first publication dedicated entirely to issues of environmental concern. Every Wednesday we met with the existing volunteer staff of the magazine, and discussed the magazine and its production. The discussion mainly focused on the technical aspects of publishing a magazine. These aspects included such things as paper cost, ink color, and formatting. The main task of our footprint group was to write a formal charter for the magazine to be presented to the Associated Students of Lewis and Clark to aid in their consideration of how to delegate funds for next year. Due to the efforts of our group, as well as the collaboration of the magazine staff, we were able to earn a grant for the publication of the magazine for next year. This means that in the years to come Living Mosaic will be able to pay staff and extend its reach to the community. Previously, the potential of the journal has been limited only by funding. Though the contributions of the environmental studies department have been very generous in the past, this new funding should open the door a little more to a limitless future for the environmental education offered by Living Mosaic.
The Environmental Studies journal practices what it teaches. Although it is printed on paper, it is published in the most environmentally sustainable process possible. The company that printed the journal is Ecoprint. They are a local Portland business. Using a local printer saves fuel used for transporting the finished publications. The paper that Living Mosaic is printed on is 100% post consumer. This is an upgrade from the first issue which only contained 30% post-consumer product. Another important aspect is the ink that was used. Most common inks are very bad for the environment when they are thrown away or recycled. Ecoprint, however, offers a more environmentally safe, soy-based ink.
These environmentally safe pages of Living Mosaic reflect the wide variety of issues and disciplines concerning environmental studies. It also showcases the different styles of media that represent the issues. The submissions and content included in the journal range from poetry to scientific papers. There are also book reviews, photography, art, personal profiles and contact information for organizations. The information is divided into seven sections: from the editors, news from environmental studies major, perspectives, connections, spotlight, explore and being involved.
Our footprint group arranged the connections section. The articles were already submitted and chosen for us before we joined the group. The pieces were also previously edited, and so we only had to make final corrections. Our job was to layout the text and choose pictures and clipart to add to the pages. The most difficult part was finding pictures to go with the stories. Although there were many pictures to choose from, not many were relevant to the topics addressed in the articles. Although we were not involved very much with the overall editing or design of the journal, we were able to gain more experience working with PageMaker and Photoshop. We were also able to see which aspects of the process caused the most problems. One problem was keeping a consistent design throughout the journal with five different people working on it. There were also problems with not enough interesting and relevant clipart for all of the articles
The 2001-02 school year will be the third year of publication for Living Mosaic. Casey Fagre and Kimo Nelson will be the co-editors of the third volume. The first volume of Living Mosaic yielded problems in printing and production. The second volume was able to eliminate most of these problems. Now that the hurdles of the past have been overcome, new goals are being set. In the third volume, the editors would like to increase the number of student submissions. Because of the past problems, publicity for submissions has not been a priority. Thus, the college as a whole has not been aware that submissions are open to all majors. Because of this, most of the submissions have been from students within the Environmental Studies major. The editors would like this to change. They would like to see more submissions from a diverse array of departments. Specifically, more artwork would be very appreciated, as well as more prose, poetry and photography. Another goal for the future is to create a web version of the journal. Being an environmental publication, the goal is to use less paper by offering the journal in a paper-free, web format.
This year has been a successful year for the journal. The staff gained more experience and is eager to continue the journal in future years. We hope that future groups involved with the magazine can draw on what we have done to further the possibilities for environmental awareness at Lewis and Clark and take into account our suggestions: an internet based version of The Living Mosaic, investigation of less costly but equally environmentally sound production, and expanded funding to allow for larger staffing, better resources, and more public awareness. These are, of course, just suggestions, and we wish the magazine and the footprint groups supporting it the best of luck.
Spring 2002: Tom Armstrong, Chris Ellison, Rob Hopkinson
Our footprint group worked with the Living Mosaic Environmental Journal. Rob submitted a poem; Chris, a story about groundtruthing at Junecrock. We all worked on layout, putting together different sections of the journal. We also designed boxes for distribution.
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