Lillian Chu ’04 was a cub reporter on that bright September morning in 2001 when terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center towers. The story was deeply personal — her mother was working in 5 World Trade Center.

The Stute’s Editor-in-Chief Larry Engleman ’03 called and woke Chu after the first plane hit, she recalls. She ran to the old Navy Building lot — where the Babbio Center now stands — because it provided the best view of the towers. She remembers some chaos and confusion. Communications were mostly down.

“It was hard to get reliable information,” Chu recalls. “How do we do this in a way that’s good journalism?” She gathered student quotes, as Stute photographer Scott Molski ’04 shot photos of the burning towers. Despite her worry about her mom and Stevens friends working in the towers, she and other staff covered the story, gathering any information they could, trying to find ways the public could help.

The paper was a distraction, and a sense of purpose. “I think that we all knew that it had to be reported,” she says today. Recording history felt daunting, but they did it, made their deadline and published on Friday, as usual.

Chu’s mother made it home that day, and so did her Stevens friends. Growing up in Jersey City, she had a view of the World Trade Center from her dining room window and sunsets that turned the towers golden in the early evening. “I don’t think that I was compelled to report on it just because it was a global event,” she says. “I was compelled to report on it because it was personal.”

As The Stute marks its 120th year this fall, the independent student newspaper of Stevens Institute of Technology has demonstrated resilience, publishing through two World Wars and two global pandemics, periods of domestic upheaval, the digital age — and an ever-changing student body. Through it all, The Stute’s editors have clung to its mission: to publish Stevens news that is of interest to its student readers.

Capturing the full Stute history is impossible. But recent conversations with some Stute staffers past and present revealed enduring truths: Certain stories linger; staff members forged powerful bonds; newspapering boosted them in the real world. And The Stute matters.

“The students know they have a voice; they know they can speak and have an outlet,” says past editor-in-chief and Stevens professor Kate Abel ’91 M.S. ’93 Ph.D. ’01.

“I think [The Stute] is essential,” says Stevens professor John Horgan, who has advised The Stute for the past 20 years. “These are students who are telling each other, and telling the professors and telling the administration, how they feel about things and reporting on important issues related to basic services that Stevens is supposed to provide, and about issues students care about.”

Stories Remembered

The Stute covered national and international news over the years. But its staffers have been mostly driven to cover Stevens news that affects the lives of students.

John Dalton ’60 and his late brother Ed Dalton ’60 — identical twins and managing editor and editor-in-chief, respectively — spotted a small item in The Jersey Journal in June 1959. The Stevens Board of Trustees had approved replacing Castle Stevens — the century-old Stevens family mansion that served as an administration building and dormitory over its long history. Driven to preserve this piece of Stevens history, the Dalton boys swung into action, with an award-winning four-part series that covered the Castle’s storied history and opposed its planned demolition.

“By the time the second article in the series ran, the alumni were upset, some of the local community were upset, faculty were upset — and my brother got called to President Davis’ office,” John recalls.

The university contended that it was far too expensive to maintain and upgrade the building. Ed felt great pressure, John says, and went on to rewrite his editorial accompanying the final part of the series, supporting the Castle’s demolition to make room for what would become the Wesley J. Howe Center.

“It was one of the very few times we had a disagreement,” John says.

But the experience lit a fire, and John Dalton went on to become an ardent advocate for preserving Stevens’ history, co-producing documentaries on Castle Stevens and the Stevens family and serving as a member of Stevens’ Historic Preservation Committee.

Over the decades, The Stute has strived to reflect the everyday concerns of students. In early 1967, hard-working Stevens students were burned out. Professors still insisted on giving major exams a week before finals, recalls then Editor-in-Chief Jeff Seeman ’67 and his managing editor Mel Thor ’68. So, The Stute decided to do something about it.

“We had this campaign that the last week before finals would be a no-test week,” Seeman says. They published both stories and an editorial supporting the change — and the faculty agreed.

A few years later, in 1968, Stute Editor-in-Chief Gerry Crispin ’69 headed to Columbia University to cover its Vietnam War protests. Stevens was much quieter then — only a few students and faculty were active in the anti-war movement. Before 1968, Crispin wrote a series of articles supporting the war. After receiving some “incredibly negative letters” from readers, he decided to learn more about the conflict and radically changed his views in 1970 after the Kent State shootings, when Stevens, and most other colleges, were temporarily shut down by student protests.

It was a fearful time on campus, recalls Stute Editor-in-Chief Sergio Ciccolella and contributor Jim Liberatore, both Class of ’72. To fail out of an academically rigorous school like Stevens came with the great risk that a student would be drafted and sent to Vietnam, they said.

Some levity was needed. “Life was a grind, and I just thought that we needed something to symbolize something more,” Liberatore says. So, he decided to try to revive school spirit with the school mascot — a dormant duck known as Rodo. He took a bed sheet, drew a sketch of Rodo and unveiled it at a Stevens baseball game. The Stute later held a contest to re-name the duck, and the student body chose “Attila,” the name it bears today.

Fast-forward a few decades for another example of The Stute delivering much-needed comic relief: “The great snowball fight of 1990,” says Chris Candreva ’91.

Candreva and Kate Abel ’91 recall how the whole fight started, its route and how it erupted into a campus-wide battle. Someone even pegged the president’s house.

“The battlefield was made up of packed snow, with body prints and boot prints everywhere,” wrote Eric Monte ’93, in the paper’s “Social Commentary” column dated March 1, 1991.

“It was fun, and it was everybody, and people who normally didn’t get along got along for one night,” Candreva recalls.

Of course, there were serious stories covered, too: a suspicious fire in Jacobus Hall and the death of Hoboken Mayor Tom Vezzetti in 1988 from a heart attack. Ed Trieste ’90 remembers a solemn trip to Hoboken City Hall to cover the Vezzetti story, press pass in hand.

Former Editor-in-Chief Natalie Todaro ’22 proudly recalls stories covered during the COVID-19 pandemic (the paper published online-only from March 2020 to August 2021) that affected the everyday lives of students, from campus regulation updates to a series of stories that covered a turbulent time for the Student Government Association (SGA). The Stute kept up with the fast-changing story on SGA cabinet vacancies and restructuring efforts.

The Stute has indeed responded to the needs and interests of generations of students, yesterday and today, covering issues such as mental health, U.S. presidential elections and living with a disability. A robust section is now devoted to the latest science news. Sensing a need to connect with female students on a mostly male campus, Namankita Rana ’19 created the column “Girl Talk.” Her column on perceived “female bossiness” “struck a chord in so many people, (examining) the different expectations for men and women,” she says.

The Camaraderie

Speak with generations of Stute staffers and you hear common themes. Maybe the strongest: an undeniable camaraderie developed after days spent together each week writing and editing stories, selling ads, shooting photos, designing pages, rushing to the printer — and doing it all again the next week. And this was in addition to juggling famously rigorous Stevens classes.

Dalton and former Editor-in-Chief George Pezold ’59 recall working until 3 a.m. some Wednesday evenings into Thursday. They made the mad dash to the Hoboken Post Office, handing off the newspaper package to friends there who delivered the paper to a printer in Jersey City.

About 80 people put out the paper, Pezold recalls. And everyone had each other’s back.

Stute humor columnist Richard Reeves ’60 — who went on to become a nationally syndicated columnist and renowned presidential biographer — taught his newspaper contemporaries that when it came to reporting, you must “cut to the chase,” recalls Dalton.

Former Editor-in-Chief Katie Gengler ’09 remembers late nights, always with pizza, inside the Stute’s Jacobus Hall offices. “A lot of the community came from meetings in the office and actually sitting and doing the layout and editing all at the same time,” she says. If you needed help with layout — or a story that made no sense — there was someone there.

“It’s the ability to yell across the room,” says her husband Phil Gengler ’05, asking for three lines here, a snappy headline there — “there’s a lot of bonding over that.”

The Stute staff was like family, says former Editor-in-Chief Natalie Todaro ’22 — talking all week to each other about stories to cover, rejoicing in each other’s successful stories and lifting each other up when they floundered.

Why The Stute Matters

For some, The Stute experience helped jumpstart a career in journalism.

“I clearly connect the dots from my time at Stevens with The Stute to my professional career,” says Kenneth Bachor ’09, a photo editor and photographer who has worked with BuzzFeed News, TIME and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

For most, it gave them work and people skills that they have carried throughout their lifetimes.

The Stute was a way to make a positive difference, says Roger Nagel ’64 — and he was keenly aware of the paper’s responsibility to be fair. “When you wrote an article, or covered something, how we covered it made a difference. This has caused me for my whole life to be aware of the impact I’m having on other people.”

For so many Stute alumni, the paper represents both a record of Stevens history and a voice of students preserved over the generations.

In the early 1970s, as the Vietnam War ground on, it was easy to feel powerless, says Stute contributor Jim Liberatore ’72. The Stute gave students a voice; Editor-in-Chief Sergio Ciccolella ’72 and team launched the newspaper’s “Sounding Board” column, where students could express their concerns.

“It was one of the few places that reflected who we were ... we felt like this was us, where for so much else, you have no control,” Liberatore said. “You’re told what to do and what (classes) to take ... we didn’t have a lot of places to have a voice.”

To Kate Abel ’91, The Stute provided not only a voice to students, but also a forum for sharing concerns with the administration. “Students also have a voice to say something needs to change. I think if that is lost — the ability of students to say that something is not right here — then that changes the environment that one lives in,” she says.

The Paper Today and Ahead

During the COVID-19 pandemic, putting The Stute out meant Zoom story meetings and digital-only. But print production resumed in Fall ’21 (the paper continues to offer a digital edition) and staff meet every Wednesday to get the paper out by Friday. (Their office space in the University Center Complex was funded by Stute alum Donald Silawsky ’69 M.Eng. ’71.)

The current staff proudly recalls recent stories that educated readers about fire safety, covered Hoboken news and encouraged voter turnout. In its May 22, 2024, issue, the paper published statistics that show The Stute thriving: 50 staff members, 20 opinion columnists, 4.5k+ Instagram followers, 700-plus articles published in 2023-24.

As Stevens’ independent news source — and the voice of students — the work of The Stute is absolutely vital, says Editor-in-Chief Isabella Ziv ’25. “It’s important,” Ziv says. “If we don’t write it down, years from now, it will be lost.”

– Beth Kissinger

Can't Get Enough of The Stute?

Readers can enjoy The Stute online at thestute.com.

The Stute’s online archives — made possible by a donation from former Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Seeman ’67 — spans 1904 through 2000 and can be accessed at stevens.edu/stutearchive