Yearbook editor Lauren Finlay ‘27 is dedicated to showcasing every “nook and cranny” of student involvement on Lafayette College’s campus.
“I like getting to meet people, see all the small things and make them look so special within the book too,” she said. “You take all these photos and you put so much work in the events and activities that you’re planning, and you deserve to get a page that looks really good.”
Finlay is the first paid yearbook editor, working under the Office of Student Involvement with its associate director, Melissa Dalrymple, who is also a primary editor of the yearbook.
Among many things, Finlay is responsible for student organization outreach to cement their spot in the yearbook.
“I make sure they know that they’re going to be featured, that sort of thing,” she said.
Last year, Finlay organized a club photo day, hiring a photographer to take pictures of each campus organization that wanted to be featured in the yearbook.
“I feel like not that many people know about the yearbook or how to be featured in it,” Finlay explained.
According to Finlay, the yearbook received very little promotion before her current position was created.
“The book was excellent in the past, but I’m definitely trying to push it more,” she said.
Dalrymple wrote in an email that Finlay’s efforts were successful, and that she helped boost senior ad sales by 125%, in part to Finlay’s “strong connection to her peers.”
“She did an outstanding job marketing and promoting the book,” Dalrymple wrote. “She’s one of the hardest-working students I’ve ever had the pleasure of supervising.”
As much as Finlay enjoys her role, it’s not without its challenges. Unlike Dalrymple, Finlay isn’t a staff member of the school, which she said can make it difficult to get in touch with departments and other college groups.
She said that she often encounters “reaching out to people who either don’t realize that the yearbook is a thing or that I need something from them.”
Finlay said she is creatively influenced by Lafayette yearbooks of years past, which she found among a collection of 30-plus-year-old copies in Dalrymple’s office and looked through for inspiration.
“You don’t want to accidentally repeat something, but you want to see: What haven’t we done and what have we done that’s gone well?” she said.
Finlay said she discovered the editor position through an email from the Office of Student Involvement, which had been struggling to get yearbook sales back to normal post-COVID.
“When I saw the email, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this was created for me,’” she said. Finlay was a yearbook staff member for all four years of high school and served as editor-in-chief her senior year.
“This is something that I’m so familiar with, and I really enjoy doing it,” she said.
Finlay said that she aspires to make the yearbook representative of Lafayette’s diverse campus and student body.
“It’s impossible to feature every student, but I want to be able to feature as many different areas on campus as possible,” she said. “I want you to open the book and be able to find your face.”
