The Brandeis Archon Yearbook club is working to be reinstated to once again  release yearbooks. The club will be taking a new approach to ensure the troubles that caused Student Union to relinquish their status as a secured club in 2023 do not arise again. Student Union President Rani Balakrishna ’25 started the initiative and has since passed the project on to an eight person executive board. 

During the initial process, Balakrishna began by gauging student interest in re-igniting Brandeis’ yearbook. She reached out to The Justice, The Hoot, Sound and Image and Media Studios and Student Union to ask if anyone was eager to pursue  the cause. Balakrishna  was surprised by the enthusiasm and quickly got to work on walking interested individuals  through the process of becoming a probationary club. On Wednesday March 26, the club had a general meeting in which a club support committee member attended to ensure it was active and had enough participants. The meeting had to have at least 10 attendees to become probationary, they had double that. In response to the club’s success, Balakrishna stated, “I feel like a proud mother.” 

In a Student Union Senate meeting on Oct. 1 2023 Archon Yearbook was voted to be de-charted. According to Balakrishna in a March 27 interview with The Justice, this occurred for a number of reasons. One being a lack of leadership. In Balakrishna’s words, “no one was willing to take the helm at the time.” This missing initiative led to deadlines being forgotten and finalization work falling on club supervisor, Matthew DeCarlo the Assistant Director of Operations for the Department of Student Engagement. Balakrishna remarked that the situation “was not fair” to DeCarlo. 

Another circumstance that led to the Archon Yearbook disbandment was money and student engagement. The Justice Senate Log from Oct. 3, 2023 states that, “the yearbook was not “financially sustainable” and lacked the necessary student interest to keep it running.” Archon Yearbook was printing 200 page hardcover yearbooks that were then mailed to all graduating seniors. Many of these yearbooks would be sent back to Brandeis. Balakrishna looks back on this as a “waste of resources.” 

So, how can the club’s reactivation be different? Balakrishna thought to herself. “Rani, if you are just setting this up to die again, you are doing more harm than good.” She was reassured by the experience the executive board has with student publication remarking, “it is certainly going to be a big project but the executive board are self starters, that’s what gives me security.” 

According to Balakrishna the model of this yearbook will be very different from the one that ran from 1950 to 2023. The executive board is looking at a more streamlined approach. The book will be formatted in a zine model with one or several quick response codes inside that will take viewers to a portable document format of photos from different events. The portable PDF will have pages dedicated to separate happenings on campus. Sports, dances, performances and more will be separated for an accessible viewing experience. These zines will be distributed during senior week.

According to Balakrishna, there are many reasons to bring the yearbook back, one being alumni funding and engagement. Balakrishna had been thinking, “how do we highlight the positive parts of Brandeis and train people to think of that so that when they are past Brandeis, they give back?” She figured a yearbook is a great way to compile memories and keep the University tangible to graduates. Another reason is the sentimentality of an object in one’s hand. “This comes from a senior place in my heart … I am excited to hold something,” says Balakrishna. She worries that in ten years when anniversaries come about, her and the rest of her class will have nothing to look at to help them remember the good times at Brandeis. Another subject that was heavy on Balakrishna’s mind while planning this endeavor was school spirit and unity. She stated that, “Covid isolation and the Oct. 7 polarization are two points of division within our community.” She hopes that the yearbook will be, “one thing to bridge a gap, even if the bridge is small.” She calls the yearbook a “neutral third party” that can hopefully take a step toward unifying the community and giving Brandeis common ground. 

In interviews with The Justice on March 31, multiple students were unaware of the effort to reinstate the yearbook . Cate Loev ’28 stated, “I didn’t know colleges even had yearbooks.” Soon to be graduated senior, Lily Roth `25 didn’t know about the yearbook at Brandeis but was excited by the idea.  “I know I will forget a lot of faces and names. I want to be able to look them up on Facebook in ten years” said Roth. She was disappointed to learn about the proposed zine format. “I want something substantial in my hands,” she said. Josh Bahar ’26 shared a similar sentiment surrounding the zine format. When asked if he would like a yearbook he responded, “sure.” In looking over a 2002 edition of the Archon Yearbook, Bahar remarked on the playful and candid nature of the photos. He said, “it’s important to document the student body of the time.” 

Balakrishna touched on Bahar’s sentiment as well. She stated, “we are seeing some parallels of history to our current climate, it’s so important to understand what’s happening now so we learn in the future.” Balakrishna calls the yearbook a “time capsule” and is “excited to memorialize Brandeis in this way.” 

The Archon Yearbook will present their plans and recent successes to the senate on Sunday April 6. If all goes to plan, they will become probationary and have access to 3,000 dollars for this academic year. They can then finalize being chartered in the fall. 

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— Editors note: The Justice Editor in Chief Anna Martin `26, The Justice Managing Editor Eliza Bier `26, The Justice Editor Marina Rosenthal `25, The Justice Deputy Editor Sophia De Lisi `26, The Justice SAssociate Editor  Xilei Ceci Chen `26, The Justice associate editor Elizabeth Liu `26 are all on the Executive Board of the Archon Yearbook Club 

and did not contribute to this article.

— Editors note: Anna Martin `26 is employed by Sound and Image Media Studios.