Victoria McKenzie/ Winonan
Glancing around Winona State University, people often note the shocking number of females.According to U.S. News and World Report, women make up sixty-one percent of Winona State’s student body.
On a campus with more women than men, a group of Winona State students found it fitting to establish a chapter of a magazine geared toward women.
On Sept. 30, a Winona State chapter of Her Campus was launched, and has already received six hundred “likes” on its Facebook page.
Her Campus is a national online magazine, which was created five years ago, to which colleges can apply to have their own chapters under the national magazine. Currently, 250 college chapters exist nationwide.
Miranda Soukup, cofounder of the Winona State chapter, discovered Her Campus through Facebook. She found an article written by a friend from the University of Wisconsin-Stout chapter and became interested in starting a chapter at Winona State.
With the help of her cofounder, Katie Schlaikowski, Soukup said she trudged through the long application process of submitting writing samples, taking editing tests and explaining how they would manage a team and publicize on campus.
After two months, they were accepted as a new chapter, and Schlaikowski and Soukup became the campus correspondents.
Schlaikowski said writing for a national magazine has a few more guidelines than ones they created on their own. Each guideline must be met each week.
Schlaikowski said, “Basically we supplement the types of stories that they are publishing, so each week we have six categories that we write on.”
The six categories include: features, blog, campus cutie, campus celebrity, photo blog and events calendar.
Soukup said, “They are nationally based topics, and we change them into Winona based topics, but we can also take it as nationally or regionally as we want, just to make it more fun.”
Soukup and Schlaikowski said they hope to implement more popular culture articles, because once they meet all six categories during the week, they can supplement any type of article they think people want to read.
Schlaikowski said the topics they cover are “whatever people want to read, and whatever we are comfortable writing.”
The national magazine policy does not constrain their possibilities for writing, but encourages creativity, as long as topics do not become vulgar or obscene.
Soukup said the magazine’s target audience is not just limited to women on the Winona State campus.
“Our target is college girls, but some of our articles are geared towards everyone,” Soukup said.
A majority of the topics are related to fashion and dating tips for girls, but some of the articles are more universal to college students, Soukup said.
For instance, Schlaikowski’s article “12 tips to Survive The Fall Bar Crawl,” tried to attract both males and females.
They also have one male writer, who gives a guy’s perspective on issues to female readers, and also acts as a male voice within the club.
Currently, the club is recruiting new members and involvement is on a volunteer basis. There will be an informational meeting at 5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27. The location is yet to be announced.
Since the club was recently established, Schlaikowski and Soukup are still deciding how people should become members.
Schlaikowski and Soukup admitted they would prefer people with writing experience, but Soukup said, “I don’t want to limit people who like writing but haven’t had the experience or chance to.”
Schlaikowski also said too often people require applicants to have experience, so they can never actually get experience. She said said she likes the idea giving people the opportunity to have that experience.
Soukup said writing for Her Campus looks impressive on resumes because the articles are nationally published.
Her Campus not only needs writers but photographers and social media team members as well.
As an online magazine, Her Campus utilizes all forms of social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Through these sites, Her Campus promotes their sponsors, including main sponsors Aeropostalé, Chipotle, Luna and Nasty Gal.
The Rochester, Minn. store manager of Buckle recently contacted Soukup, asking to team-up as a sponsor and create a blog about an after hours fashion show in Buckle featuring Winona State students.
Soukup and Schlaikowski said the site has been well received thus far, and the foundation has been set for the club to build on its impact on the lives of Winona State students.
