As Western senior Chris Crow wrote paper after paper for his liberal studies classes, he started to think: If creative writing and journalism students have venues for publishing their work, then students in other departments should too.
“I put all this work into these papers, and then they would just kind of disappear after I got a grade,” Crow said.
He considered trying to have his work published in scholarly journals outside the university, but found it was difficult to write for those publications and also meet a professor's requirements for a paper.
“So I started thinking about what it would take to start it,” Crow said.
The publication Crow envisions is called “Ockham’s Razor,” named for the principle put forth by philosopher and scientist William of Ockham that the simplest explanation of a phenomenon is usually the right one. Crow said he hopes to publish the journal’s first issue in spring 2011 and intends for it to start out as an annual publication.
Although his own academic work inspired the idea, Crow said the journal would probably not include his own papers, but those of fellow Western students recommended by professors.
"It places added incentive on working harder in your classes," Crow said. "But what you end up getting out of it is a publication not necessarily related to your classes that you can put on your résumé."
Authors who agree to submit their pieces would need to edit them so the general public could understand the concepts without being overwhelmed by unfamiliar jargon.
Crow is uncertain at this point how many papers each issue of “Ockham’s Razor” would include, but he estimates about 20.
Crow, who is majoring in liberal studies and international business, said he hopes the papers published in the journal will come from a variety of departments.
Brent Carbajal, the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said he appreciated Crow’s initiative and thought the journal was a good idea because it would enable students to introduce their work to the academic community.
“Part of the mission of the college is to foster student research and collaboration between students and professors,” Carbajal said. “This is a way to do that.”
History professor George Mariz, one of the organizers of Scholars Week, offered Crow a place at the event to present his idea to the student body. Scholars Week will be held May 17-21 this year.
Crow said he would like to use Scholars Week to recruit freshmen and sophomores who can take over leadership of the journal’s staff once he graduates.
Crow is still working out the logistics but he said he hopes to recruit a staff of about three students to review work and help publish the journal, along with several faculty members who could advise the staff.
Crow said he wants to draw on the expertise of his fellow students to make the journal a reality. Specifically, Crow said he would like to have the cover art done each year by someone who is passionate about art.
“That’s the soul of this project: to get cross-pollination between all the different cool things that people are doing on campus,” Crow said.
Crow plans to request some money for the project from the Dean’s Fund for Excellence, which usually helps fund things like speakers that come to campus. Crow said he might also consider starting an AS club for “Ockham’s Razor," which could be another source of funding.
“This is a particularly daunting time to start this kind of enterprise, which is every reason in the world to do it,” Mariz said. “Just because times are hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something, it just means you need to work harder.”
Only registered users can post comments.
Please login or register.
Be first to comment on this article
