The Long History of the Shorthorn

Beth Francesco remembers Sept. 11, 2001, like it was just yesterday. She was getting ready for class at Maverick Place Apartments when her roommate banged on her door, telling her the news.

Francesco (’03 BA, Communication) couldn’t believe what she was seeing on television. She didn’t know it just yet, but she was witnessing an event that would change history.

In a state of shock, she wasn’t sure what to do other than head to the basement of the University Center, where The Shorthorn, The University of Texas at Arlington’s student newspaper, had its headquarters. As a Shorthorn staffer, her instinct was to tell this still-unfolding story.

When she arrived, she saw that her fellow student-journalists all had the same idea; the newsroom was full of people planning how to best report the news to the campus community.

“At that moment, the only place I was going to feel comfortable and where I felt could do something about what happened was at The Shorthorn,” Francesco says. “These big news moments bring the staff together, and that has been true throughout our 100-plus year history.”

As UTA celebrates 130 years of excellence, it also celebrates The Shorthorn, one of the University’s longest lasting institutions. In fact, The Shorthorn was The Shorthorn before UTA was UTA—it was first established in 1919 at what was then called Grubbs Vocational College. Though the University underwent three more name changes before finally settling on UTA, The Shorthorn stayed the same.

Still, the newspaper had to evolve in other ways. It endured the challenges of a constantly evolving media landscape, adapting to shifts in technologies, student interests, and societal norms. Francesco, who spent 11 years at the paper, was the newsroom adviser in 2008 when the paper’s editors began adopting a digital-first mindset. She notes that The Shorthorn had to embrace new tools—from digital platforms to social media—to stay relevant and connected with its audience.

However, she says, “no matter how the world changes, the need for student voices remains constant.”

Journalists in Training

From generation to generation, staff at The Shorthorn have passed down the tradition of covering campus news.

“Every day in the newsroom, we kind of pulled off a miracle in getting campus coverage that helped inform our community, but it wasn’t always an easy job,” says Francesco, who also served as director of Student Publications during her tenure with the paper. “When you overcome adversity to pursue a greater good, that passes down to each generation and keeps us together.”

For more than 100 years, The Shorthorn’s mission has been to inform the UTA community. From a monthly printed magazine to a daily printed paper to a continuously updated website—whatever the medium, the focus has always been on telling the University’s story.

Along the way, the paper racked up hundreds of collegiate-level awards and helped produce generations of journalists who left the Shorthorn newsroom with skills that translated into real-world careers. Laurie Fox (’94 BA, Journalism), Shorthorn newsroom adviser since 2015 and a former staffer, credits her career at the Dallas Morning News to the trust she gained while on staff at the student newspaper. She believes covering the campus’ colleges, events, and everything in between is the perfect training ground for future journalists.

“When I was a Shorthorn staffer, I was never made to feel like I was just a college journalist,” she says. “The expectation was that we would all go into the profession, so the staff trained and trusted us to produce work at a high level. This mindset continues to be passed down today and makes us successful.”

John Dycus (’70 BS, Accounting), who served as a Shorthorn staffer, newsroom adviser, and mentor over a combined 50-plus years, says his favorite part of the job was seeing students graduate and go on to succeed in the industry.

“I was always delighted when our students got jobs. It’s one of the reasons The Shorthorn exists.”

Christine Vo, the editor-in-chief for the 2024-25 academic year, credits her upcoming internship with the Dallas Morning News to her time with the student newspaper.

“What I learned at The Shorthorn, and what I want everyone here now to take away, is to have that instinct,” Vo says. “Whether it be event coverage, breaking news, or enterprise stories, it’s all about that journalistic instinct you rely on.”

According to Lloyd Goodman, who was the director of Student Publications between 1996 and 2013, Shorthorn students didn’t just learn how to do journalism; they learned critical thinking skills. He joined during the so-called “Arlington Newspaper Wars” between the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Dallas Morning News in the ’90s, when Shorthorn journalists were being hired in large numbers before graduation to help staff those publications and expand their Arlington coverage.

“My mission when I got to The Shorthorn was to really train these students,” Goodman says. “That’s why I came here in the first place—I had seen that this student newspaper really was producing the next batch of journalists.”

Anatomy of a Paper and Pandemic

For as long as most can remember, The Shorthorn has been made up of a staff of about 50 students each semester—divided into editorial and business teams—and a handful of professional staff that includes advisers and a director. All are part of Student Publications, the department within Student Affairs that oversees the newspaper.

While students always have access to the mentorship of someone as experienced as Fox, the newsroom is otherwise organized just like a professional one: There is an editor-in-chief, managing editor, section editors, reporters, photographers, designers, illustrators, copyeditors, and social media manager. Newsroom leaders, who are students like everyone else on staff, have editorial independence and make decisions on what to cover and how.

This was exemplified during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, when student-journalists had to abruptly shift to remote classes and work on the fly while also figuring out how to cover a once-in-a-lifetime story.

Reese Oxner (’20 BA, Communication Technology) was the paper’s managing editor at the time. The Friday before spring break, everyone thought things would continue as normal and the staff would be back in the University Center basement after the holiday. Instead, it was the last time the 2020 cohort would be in the newsroom together.

The pandemic was like nothing anyone had ever experienced. It would have been understandable if The Shorthorn ceased production, considering the stressful time the staff was living in.

But of course it didn’t. Of course it wouldn’t.

“I believe in the mantra that journalism is the first draft of history; we’re record-keepers,” says Oxner, who also served as the paper’s editor-in-chief. “Looking at the Shorthorn archives, you can see the history of the University, and we wanted to capture another big moment for the campus. This would be our time capsule of what it was like at UTA during the start of the pandemic.”

UTA’s student-journalists got together—just like they did on Sept. 11—and covered the story.

“Everyone on that staff contributed, and they can say that it was their piece of history,” Fox says. “That’s the best part of The Shorthorn.”

That drive to serve the UTA community with high-quality journalism is why The Shorthorn has survived for more than 100 years, regardless of the seismic shifts in the media landscape or the changes seen in the University itself.

“It all comes back to being a good newspaper and having the journalistic rigor to inform our community. That never changes,” Dycus says.

Traditions New and Old

“Did you know that our newsroom used to be a bar?”

It’s a question that Kevin Cummings hears a lot these days. Ever since he was appointed director of Student Publications last fall, he’s received many phone calls from Shorthorn alumni eager to get to know him and learn how he’ll lead the paper.

“I have only been here for a few months, but just by the way our alumni speak about the basement, I can see how much care there is for this place,” Cummings says.

But as with anything that’s been around for a century, change is inevitable, and this fall will bring one of the biggest in recent memory: The Shorthorn is moving out of the University Center basement while the building undergoes renovations. For a very long time and for a lot of people, this has been the paper’s headquarters—it’s where Francesco was a staffer, adviser, and director; where Goodman spent 13 years; and where Oxner and Vo worked.

“It’s sad. I have the layout of that newsroom etched into my brain,” Oxner says. “It was my second home, where I made a lot of friends and great memories.”

The basement contains a lot of physical history as well, from the hundreds of awards hanging on the walls to the past staffers’ business cards stuck in the ceiling to the mementos left on shelves by former editors-in-chief.

“This wasn’t my newsroom when I was a staffer, but it’s where my staffers have been,” Fox says. “They’ve made it their own. We’ll find ways to commemorate this place, and I’m sure the new location will have many memories as well.”

Regardless of what the new facilities look like, The Shorthorn’s spirit will remain the same.

Or as Dycus puts it, “Don’t forget why you’re here. That’s how you keep the spirit and motivation of The Shorthorn alive.”

Shorthorn Short Bits

• The first issue of The Shorthorn was 48 pages long and 6 inches by 9 inches in size. It was published once a month the first two years.
• Grubbs Vocational College faculty member E.E. Davis offered $2.50 as a prize in a school-wide contest to name the publication. The finalists were Shorthorn and GVC Shots, and the former won in a student vote 50-18. Other suggested names included Thistle, Grubonian, Grubbagie Journal, School Gossip, Korn Kob, the Corral, and Horse Sense Magazine.
• Jewel Kingrea became the first female editor in 1920.
• The Shorthorn shifted from monthly to weekly format in 1921, though the subscription price remained the same: $1.50/year.
• The paper published its first action photo in 1933, a play from a campus football game.
• The first letter to the editor was published in 1956. It asked why Arlington State College students weren’t more involved in campus activities.
• The Shorthorn became a daily publication in 1976.
• The website www.theshorthorn.com first launched in 1997.
• Parts of the 2006 Lifetime movie Inspector Mom were filmed in The Shorthorn’s basement newsroom. (The producers liked the look of it more than professional ones.)
• In 2012, The Shorthorn moved to a publication schedule of once a week for print and daily for digital issues.

Info from Turning the Page, Celebrating the Shorthorn Then and Now (2019)