Editorial | Why we’re quietly celebrating our 100th year

Cartoon by Sami Seyedhosseini, Cartoonist

It is our 100th year! Kinda … maybe not, actually.

For the longest time, Chapman University’s archival website said that the first student newspaper began in 1926.

The Panther’s Meow supposedly started publication that year, then quickly changed its name to The Panther in 1927. And we took that information at face value. 2026 was to be The Panther’s 100th year. Until we actually had a chance to look at the records.

Our trip to the fourth floor of Leatherby Libraries prompted a discovery. Annie Tang, Chapman’s archivist, and Makenna Jonker, an archives assistant, brought out the oldest known mentions and issues of The Panther. And what we found, from an excerpt in Chapman’s 1926-27 yearbook “Ceer,” can be interpreted in two different ways.

“The Panther's Meow is a small journal founded this last semester,” it reads.

As it was published at the end of the 1926-27 school year, the phrasing is too vague to be sure of when the publication began. “This last semester” could mean that the student newspaper was founded in either spring 1927 or fall 1926. The more you learn, the less you truly know. If only the yearbook creators understood how pressing this topic would be nearly 100 years later…

Certainly, though, the answer lies in the first edition of the paper. That will be the definitive solution to this problem, we thought. But no. The oldest edition that the archives contains is from Nov. 1, 1927. But it says “Volume 2” on the front page.

Where is “Volume 1”? Who knows. What we do know is that there is no confirmation that the student newspaper began in 1926. There also isn’t confirmation that we didn’t start that year, but as journalists that simply isn’t good enough. We demand the full truth, even for fun and silly things like this.

Since our trip also unearthed information that Chapman’s archivists didn’t previously know, their website has since been changed to show that The Panther’s Meow began in 1926-27.

We both — Caleb Otte, managing editor, and Kenna Kunimura, creative director — have reasons why The Panther is still semi-celebrating the 100th year, which we developed after our visit to the archives.

Caleb

Humor me for a moment. If 1926-27 was The Panther’s freshman year, then 2025-26 is our 100th year of college. Just like if your first year at Chapman was 2022-23, then 2025-26 is your fourth year at the university. 

But that isn’t how most people celebrate anniversaries or birthdays or special events like centennials. And that’s why we find ourselves in a weird spot.

It was in our plans — from day one of the school year — to make the first print edition of 2026 our 100th year special. The Chapman website said 1926. We were sure that this was the time to make a big splash. Full disclosure, we even made hoodies for the staff.

Even with the unfortunate lack of confirmation around our start date, I don’t see a problem in a small staff celebration. 1926 is potentially the year we started publication, albeit under a more fun name. We just won’t be making a big deal of things, yet.

The true joy of this process, however, was getting to see our oldest issues. To see what was newsworthy. Apparently, a school Halloween party was front page stuff. How times have changed.

Somewhere out there lies Volume 1 of The Panther’s Meow. I’d love to find it. But perhaps it is lost to history. 

Whatever the case, don’t be surprised if you see a much more public celebration — including a print edition full of old articles from the archives — for the 2026-27 school year. And also know that those of us on staff this semester will be privately and proudly popping champagne.

Makenna

After our trip to the archives, I was torn. It almost felt like we had been planning The Panther’s 100th birthday party but no one showed up. 

In prior issues, The Panther’s print editions included volume numbers. At our visit to the archives, we were informed that somewhere down the line, previous staff got those numbers mixed up. This made our more recent edition’s volume numbers inaccurate. Because of that, I decided to retire our volume numbers from this print. 

Nonetheless, my favorite part of this whole journey was getting to see the old newspaper layouts. Flipping through the old issues got me excited to try to create new layouts for upcoming editions. I even added the old Meow name to this page. 

Despite all of the uncertainty around our official start date, I am proud to be part of a staff that gets to quietly celebrate our 100th year. And I will still be wearing my centennial hoodie.