Griffin Editor-in-Chief Shares Concern Over Funding Struggles
In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Reed College Griffin, which has operated since 1915, has had consistently escalating difficulties in securing sufficient funding to continue annually printing free yearbooks for every graduating student. During the COVID quarantine, the Griffin, like many other institutions at Reed, was forced to go on hiatus. In the years since, the Griffin has been revived by its previous staff, spearheaded by former Business Manager Taliah Churchill ’25, though not without new obstacles. Since the initial revival, the Griffin has seen ever-increasing printing costs whilst not having their allocated budget adjusted accordingly, causing them to struggle more and more with securing necessary funding to continue a vital Reed tradition.
The Quest was first made aware of the Griffin’s situation on February 18, 2026, when an email from the Griffin to Senate was forwarded to the Quest. This email stated concerns that the Griffin “will have to outsource printing… which could decrease the quality of the yearbooks and would delay their arrival.” The email further pointed out “an underfunding trend that seems to be negatively affecting Reed publications; a trend that could hinder the Griffin,” highlighting the impact of a lack of funding on student publications, known as institutional and cultural traditions at Reed. As of March 11, nearly a month later, Senate still has not responded to that email from the Griffin. In another email from March 3, the Griffin requested to meet with the Senate Student Publications Committee in regard to concerns about underfunding, and has not received a response from any of the committee members.
On March 11, the Quest conducted an interview with the current Editor-in-Chief of the Griffin Erika Spencer ’28, for more details about their struggles for funding. “I don’t know where this began,” stated Spencer. She explained that the primary issue the Griffin was facing was a combination of the fact that “the printing quotes have gone up” while their funding has not done the same to compensate. According to Spencer, “underfunding has been a big consistent problem, but it has changed proportionately” as printing costs have inflated, despite attempts from Churchill to find the most economic printing solution possible whilst not having to outsource the printing. Regardless, the rising costs have forced the current Griffin staff to seriously look into outsourcing printing. “[Churchill] proposed outsourcing printing to China last year because they lacked money, which had ethical and moral concerns. We were able to get a last minute $2,000 dollar donation from Karnell [McConnell-Black, Vice President for Student Life], which saved it,” Spencer shared. She elaborated on how McConnell-Black’s donation was no one-off, telling the Quest that the Griffin’s lack of funding often requires them to “scrounge around at departments for donations” to make ends meet for printing costs.
This year, the Griffin’s budget has been even tighter, which means they’re “looking to outsource to a company in California, but have concerns about quality,” according to Spencer. The difficulties of outsourcing mean that it’s increasingly difficult for the Griffin to work at their current scale. “It’s volatile. We’ve lost the security we used to have,” Spencer said. On top of the concerns of publishing, she felt that “the work that I and my coworkers are doing is being undervalued.” She shared that positions for the Griffin used to be unpaid, which Churchill lobbied to change. Despite this, their wages have since been cut, and the Assistant Editor position no longer exists, which increases the workload upon the remaining two Griffin staff positions. “The work I and my coworkers are doing is being undervalued,” said Spencer, who also pointed out that the Griffin has had to take on the roles of other past institutional publications without any additional compensation, adding more demands they cannot keep up with to an already strenuous workload. “We were barely able to do it,” Spencer said. “We can’t anymore, but we’re still trying to do some of these things.”
Head Treasurer Maya Gutierrez ’27, in response to a request for a statement from the Quest, said that “the two factors [Senate] considered most when allocating the Griffin their funds were transparency and the fact that they were really set on getting hardcover and not paperback.” She continued, stating “unfortunately, with the capacity with our funding we have, we can’t do that.” Gutierrez said that the Griffin “gave [Senate] a quote of 450 yearbooks… and said this was an overestimation.” but claimed that the quote “didn’t match up” with the numbers Senate received from the Business Office. Gutierrez also stated that “In past years, the Griffin gave us alternative quotes for other amounts, but this year we just had the one amount.” When asked about the increase in printing costs for the Griffin over time, Gutierrez said that “Printing costs rising hasn’t been accounted for” in their funding for the Griffin, and also stated that providing a stipend to the Griffin staff impacted their funding.
Spencer also shared that “every year the Griffin presents at Funding Circus, Senate suggests [printing with] a soft cover instead of a hard cover to save money.” She elaborated that the Griffin staff has been concerned about publishing the yearbook with a soft cover due to concerns about longevity. Spencer believes that, since the Griffin is such an important cornerstone to institutional culture, it should be printed with longevity in mind for the sake of Reed’s rich institutional memory. Spencer also shared concern that “if we print softcover or black-and-white, we’re concerned it will set a precedent for Senate to undercut our funding more. If you give an inch they’ll take a mile.” “Not to say it’s a sinking ship, but it kind of is a sinking ship,” Spencer said.