The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, led by Mother Camilla Maloney, started Immaculata University in Malvern, Pennsylvania in 1920. Originally an all girls college, Immaculata opened for both men and women in 2005. The Sisters still play an important role in our schools, integrating Catholic thought, teaching classes, and hosting activities across our beautiful campus. Immaculata University is one of the top music schools in the country. We also won the national women’s college basketball tournament three years in a row (1972, 1973, 1974), earning us the Mighty Macs movie in 2007.
The Immaculatan has been the official university school newspaper since 1934. We are a club on campus, recruiting writers of any skill level. The newspaper publishes editions twice every semester, including sections such as world news, Immaculata news, sports, entertainment, and more. We host events on Immaculata’s campus throughout the semester. The staff of dedicated and creative students strives to bring quality journalism to the community. Find more information on the Immaculata Student Organizations page here.
History
Our beloved school newspaper has existed since 1928, 8 years after our school was granted a college charter. However, our paper wasn’t always called The Immaculatan. Up until 1934, the paper was called The College Journal. Despite minor improvements, something that hasn’t changed since 1928 is that the paper is written and designed by Immaculata students.
The first editions of the paper were published biweekly and charged $1 per year for students, alumni, family, faculty, and Sisters. Due to the lack of technology, the paper was the largest source of local news, campus announcements, and student gossip. Some of the first sections of the paper included Athletics, Student Opinion, Music, Alumnae News, etc. A key column that ran from 1936-1951 was called ‘Of Spice and Men’. The column was run by an anonymous writer going by the name of ‘Snoop.’ Not much is known about this column today, but we can guess it was popular with the ladies on campus.
Since the 1970s, the paper has shifted from focusing on campus gossip and local news to journalism. Today, we focus on sports, general news, campus news, humanitarian issues, etc.
In 2006 our mission was born: “Dedicated to spreading cultural diversity and acknowledging writers from across the disciplines”. From then on, the paper was distributing roughly 500 copies of The Immaculatan.
In 2017, The Immaculatan was digitized part-time. The club aimed to distribute paper copies, just not as many. Since the pandemic in 2020, the paper has been online full-time. Even though our paper has evolved tremendously throughout the years, its history lives on through the campus, students, alumni, and faculty.
Special thank you to Abigail Yarrison ’24, former editor-in-chief, for her contribution to this material. Read her full story here.