UW-Platteville had one. Seniors had pix, and other organziations couls pay to be in. Dorm wings got some money every year and one of the ways thyey could spend it is to be in the yearbook.
One year we paid extra for twice the normal size (full page?) and we all had our heads pasted on Star Wars figurines (I was Obi-Wan)
Brian
University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1980s. We had one, though I was apparently so oblivious to it that I never cared to order one or even look into it.
20 seconds of googling found the Badger yearbook from the year I graduated, and I’m in the picture with my dorm house.
I had yearbooks in junior and senior high. I never heard of a yearbook in college or graduate school. We did have “face books” for first year only.
University of Maryland, late 90’s. No idea if they had one, but even if they did, there are some 30,000 undergrads, and I never lived on campus so I would know like 3 people in the thing.
Ohio State, late '60s. I was the layout/design editor of the yearbook. This was what led to my career in the graphic arts.
Kennesaw State University (Georgia) in the 2000s for both grand and undergrad. No yearbook.
LSU, '90s. We had a yearbook but I don’t think I was featured in it at all.
NMSU. My freshman year, 1985, we still had a yearbook. (I neglected to participate.) A couple of years later, it morphed into a “magazine”. (I never bought one, so I have no idea what the difference was.) I am not certain, but I think the magazine eventually died, for lack of interest.
I went to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in the 90’s. I wasn’t aware of a yearbook, but a bit of Googling reveals that they had one while I was there (they don’t anymore). I doubt I’m in any of them.
Tiny Liberal Arts college. Cool photographer kids worked on the yearbook, so it was good, and we all got one…
…and looked through it. Believe me, if my yearbook page had a photo of anyone in blackface (or brownface; my school was full of Iranians), SOMEone would’ve told me.
I went to a largish state university that had a yearbook. You got your picture in it if you went to the on-site professional photographer early in the year. I did so my freshman year and senior year but never bought any of their packages of pictures. Those two yearbooks have my picture in them. I just wish that more of my fellow students had done so as well.
One problem is they distributed them in the fall registration/payment session when we got our college ID. The price was included in the tuition, and you could pick one up if you had the college ID card from the previous year. However if you graduated, you probably wouldn’t be back on campus or going to the session. I gave my senior year college ID to my younger sister (one year younger) who was at the same university and she picked up my senior year version, otherwise I would never have gotten it.
I’ve looked at it a couple times over the years. It covered the large local and national events, sports, and college-sponsored groups like drama and music, plus some editorial commentary. Some of it is still interesting, but most of it is/has become dreck.
I went to a small engineering school and graduated in the mid 2000. I didn’t know anything about a yearbook, I just asked my wife who graduated with me and she didn’t think we had one either. From what I can tell online there wasn’t one while we were there.
Went to Gonzaga University in the 90s (only about 3000 undergrads then), and yearbooks were a big thing there. I wonder if that was because we had a 2-year on campus requirement and no Greek life, making the dorms more important than most colleges. It did have one useful purpose; when the State Department wanted more ID for my passport application, a photocopy of my college yearbook was one of the items they suggested using.
Penn, 1959. Of course, they had a yearbook and I even bought it. I doubt I ever looked at it. Since I was only a part-time student for three years and then hurried up to finish in the next year and a half, I hardly knew any of my ostensible classmates. OTOH, I do look at my HS yearbook from time to time.
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I went to U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I recall seeing printed yearbooks in the bookstore and they were mostly frats, sororities and other greek-related organizations. I did a few activities via engineering campus and I don’t ever recall a call-out for yearbook photos. I don’t remember anyone I knew personally buying a yearbook, freshman or senior year, or even so much as asking “Hey are you going to buy a yearbook?”. Same story for class rings, all the bookstores sold them but I can’t think of a single person I hung out with who even considered buying one.
My mind is blown. I just googled my college name and yearbook. And there was a yearbook. I had no idea. And it was discontinued the year after I graduated except for one additional edition a few years later. The university library has posted copies online. I am obviously not in it.
I went to an Ivy League college. I don’t think we had a yearbook, but I wouldn’t swear to it. If I bought one, I have no idea where it is. Well, I suppose it would be next to my high school yearbook (Which I do have, and which is garish, so I notice it on the book shelf.) We do get a reunion book every 5 years, which is text-only.
I have a vague memory that my freshman year dorm made a memory book of some kind in 1983. If I had one, it’s long gone. There is no way that it had any racist stuff in it like the one in Northman’s.
I went to Northwestern, and there is a yearbook somewhere out there. “Syllabus” was the name of our undergraduate yearbook. We had senior picture days, but I never took one. Instead, there’s a photo of me smoking a cigarette with a big warehouse fire behind me that I submitted as my senior photo. I know I have a copy of it somewhere, but where, I don’t know.