Neal Shine Media Center dedicated at UDM

University of Detroit Mercy celebrated the opening of the Neal Shine Media Center on April 18. The center, located on the third floor of the Briggs Building on the university's McNichols campus, will serve as the dedicated home for the campus' newspaper, The Varsity News.

First published in 1918, The VN struggled in recent years and was relegated to club status, then disbanded. It began again operating as a function of the communication studies department but without its own space about three-and-a-half years ago. A group of alumni -- including namesake Neal Shine -- banded together to rectify the situation, ultimately raising $40,000 towards the creation of the center.

The committee voted back in October of 2006 to dedicate the center to Shine, the much-loved former editor of the Detroit Free Press and one-time instructor at UDM. VN faculty advisor and adjunct journalism professor Craig Farrand says, "He was so well-respected." Sadly, Shine died just two weeks before the dedication of the center.

Fully stocked with 12 state-of-the-art Macintosh computers, dedicated phone and fax lines, printers and copiers, the center is a functional space that Farrand hopes will "stimulate more activity." He is thrilled that journalism students now "have their own office, their own place to go."

The VN is currently a tabloid-sized paper that reaches up to 16 pages in length. Farrand hopes to see size and quality of the publication begin to grow, particularly since the alumni group that so successfully built the media center has a new target: rebuilding UDM's journalism program.

Source: Craig Farrand, UDM
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh, VN 1994-95