Since the early 1950s, Pace Pleasantville has had annual yearbooks commemorating the students, staff, and faculty of years past. This year, that important piece of school history is proving to be very difficult to maintain, due to the lack of interest in students to create the yearbook.

Pace Presentia is the funded yearbook club that has been in charge of producing the yearbook since 2006. Presentia, which is Latin for “presence”, has not been able to find students to fill any positions in the club, which include president/editor, vice president, treasurer, secretary and photographers, for the 2019-2020 school year. Last year, each position in the club was filled. This year, in addition to their full-time jobs at Pace, members of the student development & campus activities (SDCA) office have had to begin working on producing an undergraduate yearbook. 

Although there is no student staff, Shawn Livingston, the interim director for SDCA and the advisor for Presentia, says that due to contractual agreements, a yearbook must be produced through the year 2021 to avoid a penalty.

“There is no plan to stop making the yearbook,” Livingston said. “We have no yearbook student staff, who are the students charged with the responsibility of creating the yearbook. I have attempted, on several different occasions, to recruit a new yearbook staff. This has been widely unsuccessful. I brought this news to the SGA to leverage their help in December and again in January. We do still have plans to complete a yearbook this and next year per our contractual agreement. We just need bodies to help!”

For seniors getting a senior portrait done at Pace, you must pay a $15 sitting fee for the photographer, which is standard. After that, you can get a copy of the yearbook for free. Any additional copies that you wish to purchase are $20 each. 

As a tradition that dates back to the 1950s, the yearbook is dangerously close to being a lost piece of history without undergraduate student involvement. The yearbook features photos and events from that school year, seniors, sports teams and many more memories. There is an urgent need from SDCA to find students to help put together the yearbook and continue a Pace tradition. 

“We would love to keep this tradition alive but it does require the commitment of our undergraduate students,” Livingston said. “The professional staff here in SDCA does not have the time built into their other responsibilities to create this book. This is a student-run organization, funded by the students, and therefore should operate if it is coming from the students itself.”

There will be an email sent regarding this year’s yearbook and its future to all Pace Pleasantville seniors, in hopes to cease confusion.

If you are interested in helping create Pace’s yearbook, please contact [email protected].