UNCW’s student newspaper The Seahawk celebrates 75th anniversary

WILMINGTON,NC (WWAY) — UNCW’s student newspaper The Seahawk held a celebration for the 75th anniversary of the newspaper on Saturday. The newspaper has been the voice of UNCW’s student body since 1948, founded just one year after the university.  

Over the decades, The Seahawk has expanded into a student media program that now includes the online newspaper, a literary arts magazine named Atlantis, a multimedia program known as TealTV, Hawkstream radio, and Flicker Film Society. 

At the anniversary celebration, retired associate professor and founding member of the Student Media Board, Dr. William Bolduc was awarded for his service to the program. He said a free student press is vital to a healthy campus community.  

 “The freedom of the press gives the students the responsibility to cover things that are challenging to cover,” Bolduc said. “To hold the administration accountable. To question how the state runs the university. Not all universities run perfectly all the time and it’s the right of the student press to question that authority.”  

Many students who worked at The Seahawk went on to become professional journalists—and in the case of former Editor-in-chief Geoffrey Graybeal he went on to teach at the University of South Carolina.  

“So, hired staff and managed staff, and, in a way that kind of got to where I started doing the business side of things,” Graybeal said. “Cause now I teach entrepreneurship and so I’m at a business school, and I can trace back to student media.”  

For The Seahawk’s current Culture Editor, Anna Ford, she hopes to use the experience to land a job in editing.  

“I joined The Seahawk because I’m really interested in editing,” Ford said. “I’m a creative writing major, so, my goal in the future is to go into editing and I really wanted to be involved anywhere I could on campus, and The Seahawk is one of those great opportunities where really anyone can join and you don’t have to have any experience to get started, so, I came to a meeting and I’ve been coming ever since.”  

Bill DiNome has been advising the staff of The Seahawk since 1998. He said the reason he has remained in the position over the years is because of the students.  

“Because we don’t have a mass communication school, or a journalism major, turning students out into the field professionally is a less frequent thing that you might see at larger schools,” DiNome explained. “So, when it happens it’s just brilliant. And here in this room, we’ve got several who are working professionally.”