The Office of Student Media hosted a workshop for students to brainstorm ideas for a new student magazine currently in development at Strange Brew on Wednesday. The goal is for the new publication to have its first issue published in the fall semester.
In December 2025, the University announced the permanent suspension of Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice magazines, citing a federal memo issued by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in July. The memo to federal agencies provided “non-binding suggestions” to help federal funds recipients comply with antidiscrimination laws.
After the magazines were shut down, the University proposed replacing them with a new magazine that would feature a “variety of voices and perspectives,” a University spokesperson previously told The Crimson White. Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six were targeted toward women and Black students, respectively.
“I think we were just really excited to get the process started tonight,” said Jessie Jones, director of the Office of Student Media at the University. She said she wants the new publication to have “a lot of student buy-in and feedback” as the process of creating the new magazine begins.
Liam Hoxsie, a junior majoring in finance, currently isn’t a member of any student media publications, but he attended because he wanted to contribute to the planning of the new publication.
“I think it’s really exciting to be a part of the birth of a new opportunity,” he said. “It’s great just be able to kind of give input and make sure that there’re various voices heard from across the campus.”
Allie Besing, a member of the OSM sales team, said that while she feels like “there is something missing when we don’t have Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six,” that it will be “cool to see something a little bit more broad” from the new publication that still contains aspects of the former publication.
Only a handful of former Alice staff members attended the event. No former staff of Nineteen Fifty-Six attended.
An alumni nonprofit, MASTHEAD, raised over $25,000 to fund two independent magazines after the suspensions. The magazines, which are separate from the University’s proposed new magazine, will be headed by the former editors-in-chief of Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six. They will both release print editions this semester under new names.
“I would have hoped that we would have this magazine as an addition to our lineup, but I don’t view it as a replacement,” said Andrew Jáuregui, program director for 90.7 the Capstone, a student-run radio station. He added that the permanent suspensions of Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice was “the elephant in the room” during the session.
“It’s just the next thing we’re working on, and I would hope that eventually something like this was going to happen, regardless of what happened last semester,” Jáuregui said.
