Students bring back handbook for freshmen
Jennifer Graham
Issue date: 4/4/07 Section: Campus News
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Incoming freshmen for the fall should see UK in a clearer light than that of their predecessors thanks to a group of students and faculty rolling the K-Book out of retirement.
Drew Trimble, a political science and communications sophomore, and Grant Mills, a history sophomore, wanted the freshmen class to be prepared and have resources on hand to orient themselves with campus.
They found the solution for this on-hand reference guide in the K-Book.
"The K-Book is an all-inclusive student manual," said Mills, a K-Book editorial board member. "Our staff refers to it as the 'freshman Bible' because it will serve as a reference tool for anything and everything new students will need to know."
Trimble, editor-in-chief of the K-Book, said the guide will replace other freshman guides like the Big Blue Book.
The K-Book dates back to 1901. It was used as a student handbook, but was later retired in the 1960s and replaced with the Big Blue Book.
"We have conducted some research at the King Library and saw many of the old K-Books," Mills said. "Those books gave us inspiration, but ours will be much more inclusive and modernized, of course."
The goal of the K-Book is to be more comprehensive than the Big Blue Book, Trimble said. Also, students will write the book, so it will have a student perspective that freshmen can more closely relate to, he said.
"We want the K-Book to be graphically appealing and remain collegiate," said Nancy Stephens, assistant director of new student and parent programs and K-Book faculty adviser. "We will focus on making bulleted lists rather than full pages of text as the Big Blue Book had."
As of now, only freshmen will receive the K-Book. However, the K-Book staff is hoping all students will eventually have access to the handbook.
"Right now, our focus is on new students. However, we would love to find a way to get the K-Book into the hands of all UK students that want to have it," Stephens said. "Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't be without a cost."
The idea of the K-Book came about in group discussions at the Leadership Summit in the fall.
"Our group saw that retention and involvement in organizations were not as good as we felt they should be," Mills said. "Originally, we wanted to create something that would help students learn about organizations and help them sign up for them if they were interested."
The K-Book stemmed from there.
"We want students to keep their K-Books to answer their future questions and not discard them after flipping through it like most of us did with the Big Blue Book," Trimble said.
The K-Book is still a work in progress, and the staff is looking for more input from freshmen. They will be hosting an open forum to discuss what else could be added or removed from the K-Book.
There will be two meetings today from 4 to 5 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. in room 363 of the Student Center. Free food will be provided.
E-mail news@kykernel.com
Drew Trimble, a political science and communications sophomore, and Grant Mills, a history sophomore, wanted the freshmen class to be prepared and have resources on hand to orient themselves with campus.
They found the solution for this on-hand reference guide in the K-Book.
"The K-Book is an all-inclusive student manual," said Mills, a K-Book editorial board member. "Our staff refers to it as the 'freshman Bible' because it will serve as a reference tool for anything and everything new students will need to know."
Trimble, editor-in-chief of the K-Book, said the guide will replace other freshman guides like the Big Blue Book.
The K-Book dates back to 1901. It was used as a student handbook, but was later retired in the 1960s and replaced with the Big Blue Book.
"We have conducted some research at the King Library and saw many of the old K-Books," Mills said. "Those books gave us inspiration, but ours will be much more inclusive and modernized, of course."
The goal of the K-Book is to be more comprehensive than the Big Blue Book, Trimble said. Also, students will write the book, so it will have a student perspective that freshmen can more closely relate to, he said.
"We want the K-Book to be graphically appealing and remain collegiate," said Nancy Stephens, assistant director of new student and parent programs and K-Book faculty adviser. "We will focus on making bulleted lists rather than full pages of text as the Big Blue Book had."
As of now, only freshmen will receive the K-Book. However, the K-Book staff is hoping all students will eventually have access to the handbook.
"Right now, our focus is on new students. However, we would love to find a way to get the K-Book into the hands of all UK students that want to have it," Stephens said. "Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't be without a cost."
The idea of the K-Book came about in group discussions at the Leadership Summit in the fall.
"Our group saw that retention and involvement in organizations were not as good as we felt they should be," Mills said. "Originally, we wanted to create something that would help students learn about organizations and help them sign up for them if they were interested."
The K-Book stemmed from there.
"We want students to keep their K-Books to answer their future questions and not discard them after flipping through it like most of us did with the Big Blue Book," Trimble said.
The K-Book is still a work in progress, and the staff is looking for more input from freshmen. They will be hosting an open forum to discuss what else could be added or removed from the K-Book.
There will be two meetings today from 4 to 5 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. in room 363 of the Student Center. Free food will be provided.
E-mail news@kykernel.com
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