Purpose

Prism strives to provide the Five College Community with a high quality, non-partisan features magazine. In selecting articles, Prism staff looks for those that have a "timeless" quality. That is, we hope to print articles that can be read five or ten years in the future and still be found both meaningful and relevant. Each issue of Prism is composed of three sections.

The Focus section of Prism examines a single topic each issue. Recent topics have included "Pop Culture," "Money," "Death," and "Education." Generally, the focus section includes five to seven articles detailing varied aspects of the topic. We strive to provide a diverse set of viewpoints in each issue.

The Perspectives section includes two to three articles that deal with topics outside of those covered in the Focus section. Most often, Perspectives pieces relate personal experiences or express particular opinions.

Each issue, the Literary section includes a selection of art, poetry, prose, and plays. Its goal is to publish a mixture of strong student writing and art.

In Quotables, the Prism staff compiles a list of responses to survey questions relevant to the Focus topic. In choosing responses to publish, we aim to convey the diversity of the opinions of the student body. Also included with Quotables are statistics taken from a campus survey which give some insight to the Focus topic. Numberspeak provides Prism's readers with interesting, amusing quantitative facts.

Prism is one of Amherst's oldest, still-active publications. It was founded in 1987 by Roger Berkowitz and Lowell Weiss. Their mission was to provide a suitable alternative to "The Student," a forum in which students from all five colleges could both express their opinions and show their literary side. According to Roger Berkowitz, the magazine arose "out of a need for active dialogue concerning major problems and issues in our community and our world." There was a disagreement between the original co-founders and so, Lowell left to found "Capitol Pages," the campus political magazine. The magazine's format slowly evolved over the next ten years as the three sections, Numberspeak, and Quotables were defined and style became standardized. Prism celebrated its tenth anniversary with a special issue in December, 1996.

The information used to create the History section of this document comes from Roger Berkowitz's article, "In the Beginning," in the Tenth Anniversary issue, and Sarah Hultman's information in the Prism Manual.