An Eagle Soars
Student revitalizes campus paper
By Chelsea Greenwood

A Florida Gulf Coast University student recently found a wounded bird, took it under her wing, and nursed it back to health.  Although the bird in question is the school’s on-campus newspaper, The Eagle, the steadfast determination of Heidi Franz-Hoyt helped it soar to unprecedented heights.  In addition to maintaining a marriage, raising a toddler, and preparing for graduation, this Naples native single-handedly revamped the failing paper within two semesters.

When Franz-Hoyt joined The Eagle as editor in the fall of 2002, she found one problem after another.  One of the primary issues she had to face was the constantly shifting staff.  Since the paper only had two returning writers, the rest of its contributors would submit work sporadically and unreliably.  “I had a handful of students that I could count on,” she says.  “But then, there were some that would say, ‘I have a test this week, so I can’t write the article!’”  This lack of help even extended to the paper’s distribution—Franz-Hoyt herself delivered the papers each Monday for the entire fall semester.  “A few times, I talked my dad into helping me,” she says.  Furthermore, the tight budget at the paper was stretched even more when printing costs increased and a crashed office computer demanded replacement.

One of Franz-Hoyt’s top priorities as editor was to improve communications between the paper and various branches of the university.  She met separately with the dean, the school’s career center, the town’s chief of police, and various student organization heads.  “I wanted each of these departments to contribute ideas or stories to The Eagle whenever they could,” she says.  This vital step produced more weekly content for the paper by spawning new counseling, career, and police beat sections.

Another pressing issue was the paper’s lack of advertising funds that pushed it to the brink of bankruptcy.  Franz-Hoyt worked closely with fellow student Don McHugh, a former writer for the Boston Globe who was back in school earning another degree.  “He helped me increase the advertising dollars by finding more students to go out and solicit businesses,” she says.  McHugh also negotiated with a new publisher to decrease printing costs and add new color pages to the paper.  With his help and under Franz-Hoyt’s guidance, the paper made its first profit since 1997 in the spring of 2003.

Tackling the remainder of the paper’s internal problems, Franz-Hoyt passed a bill through FGCU’s Student Government to fund a new computer for the office.  Also, by advertising the need for more contributors in each issue, she increased the writing staff tenfold—they now have 20 part-time and full-time writers and photographers.

Throughout this arduous process, Franz-Hoyt constantly kept the students in mind.  “I tried to make The Eagle something they would want to pick up and read,” she says.  “I never wanted it to be something that students only read when they were bored.”  She achieved this goal by blending pertinent local and national news with interesting and fun features.

The most rewarding part of her workweek was seeing that freshly printed edition of The Eagle in its newsstand each Monday morning.  “I could look at the final product and know that all the hard work and energy was well worth it,” she says.  “My experience at The Eagle was a very difficult one, but I can honestly tell my daughter that I loved every minute of it.”

Contact Franz-Hoyt at hnfranzh@eagle.fgcu.edu

Copyright © 2006 Oxendine Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved