For over forty years, the Commonwealth Times has served as the
student newspaper of Virginia Commonwealth University, documenting the
history and culture of VCU and Richmond. This digital collection
includes over 1,760 issues of the Commonwealth Times, spanning
the years from 1969 through 2011.
The Commonwealth Times, often referred to as the CT,
began publishing in September 1969, at the peak of the political and
social turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The changing cultural
attitudes of those times were reflected in the newspaper and over the
decades the CT has continued to try to capture the events and
essence of the university. As the student body of VCU expanded over the
years, the turnover of new editors and writers increased. This brought
about fluctuations in the scope of news coverage and the type of feature
articles published from year to year. The CT continues to
publish in print but is also available online.
The CT has generally come out twice weekly, with a few
exceptions (occasionally coming out as little as once a week or as much
as three times a week). While students from numerous majors have worked
for the CT, the majority of writers and editors have come from
VCU's School of Mass Communications, which offers classes in newspaper
and broadcast reporting. For many years, the School provided a faculty
advisor to the newspaper, but its editors have always exerted editorial
control over its content. The CT's masthead currently states
that it is "the independent student press of VCU."
The Commonwealth Times is the successor to the
Proscript, the student newspaper of Richmond Professional
Institute (RPI), published from 1939 until May of 1969 (the
Proscript replaced the Atlas, which ran from 1929
through 1939). After VCU was created with the 1968 merger of RPI with
the Medical College of Virginia, it was only a matter of time before the
student newspaper's name and mission would change. Beginning in 1968,
the Proscript began to include news from the medical campus
(the Skull and Bones, the student newspaper at MCV, ran from
the 1930s until the 1950s).
Each issue up to the summer of 2004 has been scanned in its entirety from original
print copies in the collection at James Branch Cabell Library Special Collections and Archives.
Starting with September 2004, we are
presenting digital archive PDFs received directly from the
Commonwealth Times. The complete text of every issue is fully
searchable. A text search can also be narrowed to only search front
page headlines. For each issue, there is a link to a full PDF of the entire issue.
This site will be updated twice a year after the end of the fall and
spring semesters, with all issues from that previous semester. Copyright
for the materials in this collection is managed by the VCU Libraries.
The use of these materials
is subject to the stipulations specified in the VCU Libraries
copyright page.
This digital collection represents more than 96% of all the known issues. The issues
listed on the right were published, to the best of our knowledge, but are not included in this collection. If
you have a copy of any of these issues that you would be willing to donate or share for scanning, please contact James Branch Cabell Library Special Collections and
Archives.
Missing issues
If you have a copy of any of these issues, please contact James Branch Cabell Library Special Collections and
Archives.
1970s
April 18, 1974 (Vol. 5, no. 21)
Oct. 17, 1975 (Vol. 7, no. 6)
Feb. 20, 1976 (Vol. 7, no. 18)
1980s
Oct. 26, 1982 (Vol. 14, no. 8)
March 22, 1983 (Vol. 14, no. 20)
Oct. 8, 1985 (Vol. 18, no. 5)
Oct. 7, 1986 (Vol. 19, no. 3)
Dec. ?, 1986 (Vol. 19, no. 10)
Jan. 27, 1987 (Vol. 19, no. 12)
Jan. 25, 1988 (Vol. 20, no. 16)
Oct. 4, 1988 (Vol. 20, no. 7)
1990s
Sept. 16, 1993 (Vol. 25, no. 6)
Sept. 23, 1993 (Vol. 25, no. 8)
Sept. 30, 1993 (Vol. 25, no. 10)
April 8, 1994 (Vol. 25, no. 49)
Sept. 16, 1994 (Vol. 26, no. 9)
Jan. 23, 1995? (Vol. 26, no. 42)
April 21, 1995? (Vol. 26, no. 72)
Oct. 25, 1995 (Vol. 27, no. 24)
April 15, 1996 (Vol. 27, no. 66)
April 26, 1996 (Vol. 27, no. 71)
Feb. 26, 1997 (Vol. 28, no. 57 )
March 24, 1997 (Vol. 28, no. 63 )
Sept. 1, 1997? (Vol. 29, no. 2)
Nov. 7, 1997 (Vol. 29, no. 29)
Dec. 1 or 3, 1997 (Vol. 29, no. 35)
Dec. 8, 1997? (Vol. 29, no. 37)
Feb. 19, 1998 (Vol. 30, no. 48)
March?, 1998 (Vol. 30, no. 51)
May?, 1998 (Vol. 30, no. 64)
Sept.?, 1998 (Vol. 30. no. 65)
Jan. 18, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 1)
Feb. 25, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 12)
March 4, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 14)
March 8?, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 15)
March 11?, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 16)
April 8, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 20)
April 19, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 23)
Sept.?, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 27)
Sept. 23, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 31)
Oct. 4, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 34)
Oct. 21, 1999 (Vol. 31, no. 38)
2000s
March 23, 2000 (Vol. 32, no. 15)
April 24, 2000 (Vol. 32, no. 24)
Sept. 9, 2002 (Vol. 37, no. 4)
Sept. 16, 2002 (Vol. 37, no. 6)
Oct. 3, 2002 (Vol. 37, no. 11)
Oct. 31, 2002 (Vol. 37, no. 20)
Nov. 18, 2002 (Vol. 37, no. 26)
Feb. 3?, 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 7)
Feb. 6?, 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 8)
Feb. 13, 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 10)
Feb. 17, 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 11)
March 17?, 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 16)
April 17, 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 25)
April 21, 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 26)
April ?. 2003 (Vol. 38, no. 27)
Aug. 28, 2003? (Vol. 39, no. 3)
Nov. 6, 2003 (Vol. 39, no. 19)
Feb. 5, 2004 (Vol. 40, no. 4)
April 19, 2004 (Vol. 40, no. 20)
