Voyageur turns 25 this year
Voyageur magazine, an award-winning regional history publication, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. To commemorate this, the Friends of the Cofrin Library will host a speech by Victoria Goff, Voyageur editor for the past 15 years, on March 25 at 7 p.m. in room 204, Mary Ann Cofrin Hall.
Goff, an associate professor of communication and history, will talk about Voyageur’s history, how the magazine is put together, and the upcoming anniversary issue. The magazine is co-sponsored by UW-Green Bay and the Brown County Historical Society.
Goff says this issue will include 25 articles, one for each year, on highlights of the history of Northeast Wisconsin. Organized chronologically, it begins with a piece about the ice age by St. Norbert Geology Prof. Nelson Ham, and ends with an article about the clean-up of the Fox River, written by UW-Stevens Point History Prof. Gregory Summers.
Other contributors include UW-Green Bay staff and current and retired faculty members, including Scott Hildebrand, Jerrold Rodesch, Janet Speth and Andrew Kersten. Other authors include faculty from UW-Fox Valley, UW-Manitowoc, and UW-LaCrosse as well as curators from the Neville Museum and the National Railroad Museum, an archivist from Lawrence University, official Oneida and Menominee historians, and journalists from the Green Bay Press-Gazette and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Voyageur’s connection with UW-Green Bay is long. Its three editors — Norbert Gaworek, Dean O’Brien, and Goff — have been UW-Green Bay professors, and its publisher, Bill Meindl, is a UW-Green Bay graduate. Graphics professors Jeff Benzow and Toni Damkoehler alternate semesters as art directors, and Prof. Christine Style has been art director for several issues. UW-Green Bay graphics students have been involved since the early years of the magazine, and when Goff became editor, she began giving communication, history, English and other majors opportunities to gain editorial experience.
At the 2006 fall convocation, Voyageur was recognized when the many people involved in its production were awarded the Founders Award for Excellence in Collaborative Achievement. As one nominator said, Voyageur is a “distinct, innovative and successful academic endeavor, rooted on the UW-Green Bay campus for more than two decades, fostering cooperation and scholarly achievement among a variety of University departments and personnel and enhancing the campus and community’s intellectual and cultural life.”
The magazine also reflects the interdisciplinary focus of the University, connects learning to life, and serves the metropolitan area and a wider 26-county readership area.
Voyageur is available through subscriptions, is sold at bookstores and is available in libraries statewide. It is also distributed in other states and countries as far away as Saudi Arabia.
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