Ad Hoc to Tackle the Big Issues

Columbia students are not shy about expressing their opinions when it comes to politics, community issues, and the arts-just the opposite. But it takes a little extra gumption to create an outlet for those attitudes, and that is just what a group of juniors and seniors learned as they prepared to launch Ad Hoc, a new student publication on campus.

Originally conceived in December 2004, Ad Hoc will be a magazine devoted to political and cultural commentary, with a special focus on the local community. Editor-in-chief Kristen Loveland, CC '06, said she and editor Alex Jung, CC '07, were motivated to create the magazine because of issues like the Manhattanville expansion and University policy for Reserve Officers' Training Corps recruitment.

"[The entire campus] was discussing these issues, but no one was really getting a full picture ... and no publication was there to fill that void," Loveland said. "It made no sense, given that Columbia has such a history of activism, and we decided it was time to create a magazine that would promote activism."

To fund their magazine, Loveland and Jung applied for grants from several organizations, including Campus Progress- a group affiliated with the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.

"Alex worked last summer for the People for the American Way [a liberal advocacy group], so he had contacts with people who told us about different grants," Loveland said. Loveland and Jung sent in their application at the end of the summer and were informed that they had been selected in early October.

The money from the grant was largely non-conditional. The only requirements were that Ad Hoc promote "a strong community of activism" and that they contribute to the Web site of the Center for American Progress.

Their start-up finances secured, Loveland and Jung set about organizing a staff of writers and publishers. As Loveland explained, "I've been here for three and a half years, so I've met a lot of people with similar interests in writing and political activism. We mainly talked to people who we knew would bring something special [to the magazine], but we also wanted people who will be able to keep it going." With this in mind, the Ad Hoc team held an interest meeting at the end of last year and also had a sign-up sheet at the Activities Fair in September. The current staff includes ten managing board members and ten writers.

The magazine will feature articles about the historical, legal, and political dimensions of issues that affect the Columbia community, with a focus on the Manhattanville expansion. Loveland is hopeful that Ad Hoc will "give people a better understanding of the local community and encourage them to get involved."

Although the creators of Ad Hoc cite The Nation, The New Yorker, and Atlantic Monthly as influences, they see their magazine as unique because of its "attention to the political events that directly affect our school." Loveland stressed that "we're not trying to be the Columbia Political Review or the Spectator ... Ad Hoc is meant to have longer pieces" that give readers a more comprehensive look at community issues.

While most of its articles will cover liberal politics, Ad Hoc will also feature artistic criticism and original pieces of fiction and poetry. "I would say 80 percent [of the content] will be more activism-oriented and 20 percent will be creative," Loveland said. "It's sort of like The New Yorker in the sense that we want to have original work by our writers."

Other pieces in the magazine will focus on popular trends and their implications for American culture. In the first issue, stories on sex columnists and the rise of graphic novels as an artistic medium are featured.

"We're going to examine fads that affect college students ... looking at what they say about pop culture from a slightly lighter point of view [than other articles in the magazine]," Loveland said.
The periodical's look will also reflect an artistic sensibility. Layout editor Maxwell Foxman, CC '07 and a Spectator news deputy, will be in charge of the visual design, and Loveland said that "he wants to use the artwork to make it very appealing, especially in terms of photography. It's important that we use our visibility in an eye-catching way." She listed magazines like Interview and Rolling Stone as paradigms for the layout, emphasizing their striking graphic designs.
Loveland was optimistic that the first issue would be ready for publication "sometime around Nov. 15 ... Basically we'd like to have it out before Thanksgiving." Ad Hoc's initial run will consist of approximately 2,000 copies to be distributed among Columbia students. At least two more issues are scheduled to run during the spring semester. Loveland and other Ad Hoc contributors hope that their magazine will find an audience at Columbia.

"There's obviously a section of campus that won't pick it up, and it's geared toward more liberal readers. We realize there's a difference between apathetic liberals and activist liberals, but we want to reach both [groups]," she said. "At this point we're just seeing what can come out of it ... Hopefully we'll be able to generate a lot of new ideas and awareness within the student body," she said.