Usually delivered in October, Spotlight, Macalester's traditional student directory, finally made in into students' mailboxes last Friday.

The printing of Spotlight came after Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) Vice President Edward Donkor met with one of the co-editors of Spotlight, Loren Smith '03, and the two ironed out a series of long-term miscommunications with the printer.

"We basically just had to call the printer," Donkor said. "Just somebody talking with the printer would have solved this problem a long time ago."

However, Meg Stinchcomb '04, co-editor of Spotlight, said that she had been in contact with the printer, Shakopee Valley Printing, as recently as spring break.

"There has been miscommunication all over the place," said Donkor. "There were a lot of assumptions going on, both between the co-editors and between the co-editors and printer."

According to Assistant Director of Campus Programs Tara Stormoen, the Campus Programs advisor to Spotlight, a nearly finished version of the publication had been sitting idle at Shakopee for over six weeks because employees at the printer had difficulty establishing consistent contact with the Spotlight with the editors.

After reestablishing communication with Shakopee, Smith was able to fix a long-standing issue with the cover. She then gave Shakopee her explicit permission to print, which the printer needed to go ahead with the project.

Donkor and Smith agreed to expedite printing of the publication as much as possible, even if that meant ignoring known errors including missing pictures and incorrectly identified students.

"I gave [Smith] the choice to print the sub-par Spotlight or to scrap the project," said Donkor. "She chose to put up with the sub-par Spotlight and take the heat."

Smith was unavailable for comment at press time.

"If we had made those corrections, [Spotlight] would have cost more and taken much longer, " Donkor said. "We had waited long enough."

The Spotlight delay was so great that MCSG considered canceling the project all together at an MCSG Legislative Body meeting before spring break. While most of the voting body agreed that Spotlight had little use as a directory this late in the year, many members argued that the publication could still function as a surrogate yearbook for graduating seniors.

Considering input from the Legislative Body, and after determining that canceling printing would still cost $2000, Donkor decided to go ahead and spend the already-budgeted $7000 to print Spotlight.

"We would have sunk money either way," said Donkor.

Donkor did decide to cut circulation of Spotlight from 2500 to 2000 copies and limit distribution to staff and faculty. Donkor said that his decision, which slightly cut costs, was based on the delayed Spotlight's utility as a directory.

Students seem to be giving largely negative reviews to the publication, which was mostly produced by a Minnesota College of Art and Design (MCAD) student after the Macalester student editors suffered a multitude of technical difficulties and miscommunications.

"It was not like the long wait generated a higher quality product," Simon Cecil '05 said.

"They pushed the whole 'better late than never' idea way too far, " Lilly Marshall-Bass '05 said.

"It is wrong that somebody totally outside of Macalester made those comments," said Julia Podevin '04, referring to the sarcastic comments added by the MCAD student, Sparky Hardisty.

In a letter to The Mac Weekly published in last week's opinion section, Hardisty said that he did his best to continue the tradition of humor in the publication.

"The people I have talked to are disappointed with the way it looks: less comedy, fewer pictures, missing numbers, etcetera," said Clark Wohlferd '03, a member of the MCSG who advocated for the delayed printing of Spotlight.

Wolhferd also noted, however, that "the Spotlight editors were the only ones willing to do the work this year so it would be unfair to criticize them for the content."

Indeed, Campus Programs' Media Board hired Smith and Stinchcomb knowing they had no experience with the necessary technical skills because no other students applied for the job.

The six-month delay and negative reviews of Spotlight have prompted MCSG and Campus Programs to reconsider the role of the Media Board, which currently is in charge of all hiring for student media organizations including Spotlight.

Stormoen said that she and Campus Programs Director Brian Wagner have several ideas about how to improve the Media Board. She suggested that objective members, such as faculty, staff and a student review committee, could be useful to the board.

Currently, the heads of the media organizations and Stormoen make up the Media Board. Stormoen hopes to present her and Wagner's ideas to MCSG soon.