History

The University Senate created the first Board in Control of The Michigan Daily at a meeting in June 1903. The Board first met on November 19, 1903. The Board consisted of four members from the faculty Senate and three students and its first Chair was Professor Fred Scott. On November 24, 1908, the Board changed its name to the Board in Control of Student Publications and assumed control of the Michiganensian and the Gargoyle. In 1909 it added the Student Directory and in 1911 the Wolverine, a summer session newspaper, was added. All the publications and the Board were provided office space and printing facilities by the Ann Arbor Press at its building on Maynard Street. The Board was incorporated in 1919 as a nonprofit corporation, consisting of seven members, four appointed by the president of the University from the University Senate and three students elected from the student body. The publications each had space in the Ann Arbor Press Building. In 1922 an executive committee of the Board was created to consider plans to construct a Student Publications Building. The new building was built in 1930 through 1932 and was occupied in the summer of 1932. The first publication edited in the new building was the Summer Michigan Daily of 1932. A committee on University publications of the Alumni Advisory Council recommended that the faculty and consequently the Board provide stricter control of the material in the newspaper. As a result, two alumni actively engaged in newspaper work were added to the Board in the winter of 1933. The first two individuals to hold these positions were Lee White of the Detroit News and Stuart Perry of the Adrian Daily Telegram. In 1991 President James Duderstadt created a task force to assess proposals to reform the Board in Control of Student Publications and to clarify the Board’s relation to the University and its effectiveness in achieving its educational mission and sound management of student publications. Consequently, the Regent’s Bylaws were amended in June 1992 to reconstitute the Board as the Board for Student Publications. The Board is made up of nine members appointed by the president of the University. Five members are University student publication alumni and four are selected from the University community. The editors in chief and business managers of the student publications serve ex-officio on the board without vote.