A new student-run publication wants to dip its pen into the diverse melting pot we know as the UH campus and present its product as a tool to unite, founder Ashleigh Simmons said.
Secondary education senior Ashleigh Simmons founded INK Magazine after she noticed a divide on campus.
"Basically, what we’re trying to do is dip our pen in ink and use the power of the pen to unite these different cultures together," Simmons said. "There’s so many rich cultures on campus, and we want to highlight all of those."
The magazine is mainly geared toward featuring articles of many different organizations and clubs that build the UH student community. Simmons said she wanted to have a magazine that centers on highlighting the different groups that are a part of UH.
"There are many organizations that are not known. We want to highlight their efforts and contributions to this campus," Simmons said.
The magazine staff hopes to effectively expose diversity on campus. Although Simmons said she feels that the UH campus is very diverse, she also said she believes it is segregated.
"There is a lot of segregation among different cultures and I want to be able to unite them. I hope to have the organizations have an open mind to work with us and other organizations," said Simmons.
Simmons said there was not one single experience that led her to recognize the underappreciated organizations, but instead a collection of experiences in her time at the University.
"I’ve been going to the campus for about four years now, so I’m pretty familiar with how things run as far as organizations and individuals, and so I just felt like this year was time for a change," Simmons said.
Simmons, who is now pursuing an education degree, started off as a communication major at UH and is not in any other organizations on campus.
"I always loved to write. However, I enjoy education. It benefits me personally," Simmons said.
The primary goal this semester is to advertise the magazine well enough to develop a following for next semester, Simmons said. The magazine is advertising through many fundraising events, such as Monday’s talent show, Show Time at the Apollo: UH Style.
"Our goal for the talent show was to kind of unite the different cultures, so we got a lot of different people from different parts of the world…We just wanted to highlight that – the different people and the talents that they had."
Although the talent show proved to be a fun time, it wasn’t as succesful as the editors and writers of the magazine had hoped it to be, Simmons said. Even so, she says these experiences this semester can only help the magazine succeed next semester when they plan to publish once a month.
"It’s really just a learning experience for me," she said. "Now I know what I should do for next year and what I shouldn’t do for next year and hopefully we can get a larger crowd to come out and support what we’re doing."
The show helped bring in a little less than $200 for INK, an accomplishment considering the magazine has no official sponsor and everything is paid for out of pocket.
"All the printing processes are done out of pocket. We have fundraisers and a sponsorship for events," Simmons said.
Throughout the spring, Simmons said she has been making efforts to contact and build cohesiveness among the organizations. She and her team of five, which include writers, editors, a photographer and a graphic designer, have been researching student organizations to find possible featured articles and to create interesting stories for the students.
The magazine is not only intended to highlight student organizations, but it is also a tool to bring all types of organizations together to share and learn backgrounds, customs, and cultures, Simmons said.
"We want to be able to highlight what our students are doing on campus," said Simmons. "Bringing the organizations together would promote a sense of community."
The magazine will have a release party from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday in the Philip Guthrie Hoffman Hall breezeway where they will give out copies of their 12-page preview issue.
For more information on INK, e-mail [email protected] or visit
